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THE 



IRISH MONTHLY 



% Mwi^^ ^ (Stmral pteradtmu 



TENTH YEARLY VOLUME 
1882 




D UBLIN 

H. H. OILL & SON, 50 T7PPEB SACEVILLE-STBEET 

LONDON: BimNS * OATBS; 8IHPKIN. MAttflTTAT.T. a cO. 



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The Ibish Hohthly Ib sent poet free for Seyen Shillings. 
The Yearly Volume begina with the January 1^ umber. 



BY THE EEV. MATTHEW EUSSELL, SJ. 

I. 
Sixth JSditum. Price 2s. 

EMMANUEL: 

A BOOK OF EUCHARISTIO VERSES. 



II. 
Second Edition. Price 2$. 

MADONNA: 

VERSES ON OUR LADY AND THE SAINTS. 



III. 
Price 2$. 

ERIN: 

VERSES IRISH AND CATHOLIC. 



Cpidoss of i\^ Sresf • 

'* More than oommonlj beautifuL"— 2^^ Aeademy. 

** Full of beautj, rerj sWMt and pure. The best religioua poetty we haTe seen this 
long Ume.^— Dublin Beview. 

** As pretty ae they are pious.*'— TA« Month. 

" One of the most useful and ^«li*i'««ing embodiments of Catholic piety which has 
issued from the press." — Irishman. 

" These poems are simple, derotional, musical, and eloquent**— /risA Eeelenastieai 
Jiiccrd. 

« Une admirable ooUection de po6sies."— Pivpc^otswr Caiholique, 

'* They will meet with prompt and warm recognition from all cultured readers.* — 
2%e Nation. 



M. H. OiLL & Son, 50 Uppeb Sickyillb-stbssTi Dublin. 

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PREFACE. 



/\NE of the little outside testimonies to the benign power wielded bj 
\J the Blessed Tirgin over the hearts of her Oreator^s creatures, i» 
the poetry that clings to her rery name, and to ereryihing connected^ 
with her. For instance, how often her Bosaiy turns up in unlikely 
quarters I When the most poetical of poets wished to describe some 
transaction as happening in the forenoon, his phrase is : — ** Ere the 
hot sun count Ids dewy rosary on the eglantine," — ^that is, touching 
bead after bead of dew, and drying it up, as he fingers his beads, as 
he counts his rosary. In like manner, we haye more than once spoken 
of our lengthening chain of yolumes as our rosaiy ; and now we hayi» 
completed our first decade, our first ten years. The full Bosary con- 
sists of fifteen decades ; but eyen our ordinary chaplet of fiye decades 
— how many editors will haye handed the beads on from one to another 
before that point can be reached, if it is to be reached at all ? 

Bochefoucauld says that some people are so fond of making them- 
selyes the subject of conyersation that they will eyen speak ill of them- 
aelyes rather than be altogether silent on that attraotiye theme. On 
the other hand Dr. Johnson warns us against letting out things to 
our own discredit, for our hearers are sure to repeat the disparaging 
facts while suppressing all allusion to our candour in telling them 
against ourselyes. Acting on this principle, we refrain from adyert- 
ing to certain shortcomings in the yolume now completed, which we are 
confident of being able to remedy in the new yolume beginning with 
our next month's Number. 

No greater piece of good fortune has happened to our Magazine 
than its being made, during the past year, the yehide of giying for 
the first time to the world documefits which reyiews of the highest 
pretenmons would be proud to publish— the Diary of the great^O'Con- 
nell's early manhood, and many letters of his maturer years. Mr. 
Morgan (yOoxmell's great kindness is not yet exhausted ; and we haye 
receiyed additional " O'Connell Papers '* from Mr. J. T. Deyitt, Mr. 
Maurice Lenihan, and others, to whom we giye our sincere thanks. 

No item has excited greater interest than theyeiy remarkable autop 

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iv Preface. 

biographical fragment by the poet James Clarence Mangan. When 
chance and the kindness of a friend placed it in our hands, we pro- 
cured an attestation of its anthentidly, and a licence for its publication, 
from the Bev. C P. Meehan, for whom it had been origindly written. 
We afterwards learned that Father Meehan gave the manuscript many 
years ago to Sir Charles Chiyan Duffy, who has been good enough to 
ratify its fate, and who eyen allows us to hope for other interesting 
documents. Perhaps some of our readers may be able to help us to 
trace the course of the Mangan fragment from the custody of Mr. 
Cashel Hoey to the kind hands from which we ourselyes first receiyed 
it. 

One of the uses to which each year we deyote this otherwise blank 
leaf is to ask the prayers of our readers for those who' haye wielded 
their pens for us, and who in the course of the year haye laid their 
pens aside for eyer. At page 662 we pay this tribute of gratitude to 
the late Dillon O'Brien. '' A Lost Hctipre/' at page 245 of our ninth 
yolume, was the solitary contribution of Charles Kickham, who died 
this year ; and '^ The Prodigals," at page 22 of our seyenth yolume, 
seems to us to be a remarkable relic of Mr. Arthur O'Keeffe, a yeiy 
young man of talent from Kerry, who died a few months ago, at the 
beginning of his career. In this Memento of the Dead we will include 
a name to which we are unable to offer elsewhere the homage of our 
gratitude, affection, and admiration — ^the Bey. Dr. Murray of May- 
nooth, who did not tarry long behind his friends and colleagues, Dr. 
CroUy and Dr. Bussell. May they and all the faithful departed 
through the mercy of Gk)d rest in peace, and may we in our turn, when 
we depart, be found among the faithful souls to whom that prayer, 
breathed by others when we are gone, will be applicable. 



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CONTENTS 



BTOBnes. 



PAOB 



Agnee Treherne. By Mw. F. Pentrill. 


. 655 


Autobiography of a White Bose. By Ruth O'Ooimory 


. 559 


Sketched from Life. By Boea Mulholland, 


. 619 


The Dwarfs Mirror. ] 


t>y M. M.y • • . 


. 691 


Bead Broke. A Tale of the Western Statee. By DUlon O'Brien. 




Chapter I. 


Two dear Friends, 


1 


n. 


The Mayor of P , . 


. 10 


III. 


Indian Dick's Purs4 • . • . 


. 59 


IV. 


Partings, . . * . * 


. 66 


V. 


Another Departure, 


. 146 


VL 


The Flitters Family, 


. 151 


VIL 


A Wedding, . 


. 187 


vin. 


J. J. Jenkins, Esq., 


. 195 


IX. 


Buin, 


. 370 


X 


ICr. Mahon's Cow, 


. 376 


XI. 


Unde William's Win, . 


. 401 


XII. 


William M'Oregor's Berenge, 


. 515 


XTTT. 


Tioketol 


. 520 


XIV. 


Jim Santa Glaus, 


. 563 


XV. 


A Fire and a Match, 


. 569 


The Monk's Prophecy. 


By Attie O'Brien. 




Chapter I. 


An Indian Telegram, . 


. 24 


n. 


TheMacMahonsofCastleishen, . 


. 28 


ni. 


"The Hut," . . . . 


. 33 


IV. 


An Expected Visitor, . 


. 84 


V. 


A Change for Carrie, . 


. 87 


VI. 


The Prophecy, 


. 117 


VIL 


AQuietTalk, 


. 124 


VHL 


Breaking New Ground, . 


. 217 


TX. 


lifehiOieCil^, 


. 222 


X. 


Bustaoe seeks Pastures New, 


. 343 


XL 


AF^talWalk, 


. 360 


XIL 


The Valley of the Shadow, 


. 430 


XTIT. 


The Alms-house, 


. 461 


XIV. 


KewFriends,. 


. 466 


XV. 


A i/iiange ox Doen^ . • oigitizec 


fbyGoO^fif 



VI 



Contents. 



The Monk's Prophaoj.— eon^tmiAi. 

XVL A Happy Haren, 
XVII. In the GreenlLanes, 
XVni. A Dinner Party, 
XIX. 7 An Artist's Betum, 
XX. In the Hut, . 
XXI. Halcyon Days, 
XXn. A Lore that does not run smooth, 

XXIII. Complications, 

XXIV. Mrs. Hassett's Suspicions, 
XXV. A Sudden Summons, . 



PAOB 

539 
692 
699 
633 
638 
706 
712 
768 
761 
768 



SXETOHSS OF FULCEB AHD PeBBOKS. 



An Old Stone. By F. S. D. Ames, . . -17 

Jottings in Lancashire. By Bosa Mnlholland, . .38, 97> 132 

Bey. John Thayer. By the Bey. T. B. BridgeU, C.SS.B., . . .74 

Christmas in the Hospice. By Sydney Starr, . « . . 105 

St. Martha's Home. By Mrs. Charles Martin, . . .157 

Who was IVither Arnold ? By the Bev. Matthew Russell, S. J., . 162 

Denis Florence Mac Carthy. By the Same, . 388, 446 

A Chat about Montreal. By An American Lady, . . 207 

The O'Connell Papers : Unpublished Diary and Letters of Daniel O'Con- 

neU,. . . . . 333,437,449,607,683,624,717,776 

Fra Bartolommeo, the Great Dominican Painter. By Bosa Mulholland, 391, 473 
Michael Blake, Bishop of Dromore. By the Ber. Matthew Bussell, S. J., 409, 501, 529 
The late Dillon O'Brien. By the Same, . .662 

Our Pilgrimage to Lisdoonvarna. By M. E. C, . .666 

Clarence Mangan's Autobiography, ..... 676 
The Life of a Saint By M. K, . .743 

AnnaAloisi. ByM. B., . • . 770 



ESSAYB A17D BeVISWB. 



Some Practical Hints on the Education of Children, 
Flowers for the Altar. By Mrs. F. Pentrill, 
Thoughts on Prayer. By M. M., 
The Foster-Father's Anthology. By the Editor, 
Irish Wool and Woollens. By a Discursire Contributor, 
Ereryday Thoughts. By Mrs. Fnmk Pentrill. 
I. Teapots and Kettles, 
n. On the Choosing of Wires, . 
in. On CleTer Women, 
Father Byder's Poems. Vj the Editor, 
The Writings of an Irish-American Nun. By M. E., 
A ICagaiine for Children, 
De Yere's Legends of Ireland's Heroic Age, 
Under DiiBcultiee. Vj Bosa MulhoUand, 
Study and Faith. An Address. By the Ber. T. A. Finlay, S J. 
The Ovltnre of the Will. ByW.H., . 



By Mrs. Helen D. Tainter, 47 

. 67 

. 142 

. 171 

176, 354, 414, 485 



625 
678 
749 
605 
615 
673 
722 
752 
735 
768 



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Contents. 



'SoTiOEB OF Books. 



VII 
PAGJi 



Bneton. — ^Twentj Eanyi of BUa.^Mu0io of IreUnd.— Inatractioiia for Faziion- 

lar StatflB and Conditions of Life.^Principles of Catholic Education. 

Credo ; or, Justin's Martyrdom. — ^Bason's Almanac for Ireland for the Year 
1882.— Mary Aikenhead : her Life, her Work, and her Friends, . 50 

Inatitaliones Theolog^icsB in usum Scholarum. — Sun and Snow. — ^The Household 

Book of Catholic Poetry, . . . , .112 

A Memoir of the Life and Death of the Ber. Father Augustus Henry Law, S.J. 
Lettres from the Annals of the Sisters of Mercy. — Stories of the Christian 
Schools. — Some of the Periodicals. — ^Pamphlets. — Two New School His- 
tories of England. — ^The New Portrait of Cardinal Newman, . . iQg 

The Confederation of Kilkenny. — Stephanie. — ^The Heart of Jesus of Nasareth, 230 

Manual of St* Michael the Archangel. — ^An Exhortation to Frequent Commu- 
nion. — My Little Prayer-book. — Manual of Church History. — Out in the 
Cold World. — ^Duffy's Weekly Volume of Catholic Dirinity. — Catechism 
made Easy. — Outlines of English History.— The GirFs Book of Piety. — 
Norenas of the Sacred Heart and of the Blessed Virgin. — HisceUaneous, . 384 

Father Casey's Verses on Doctrinal and Derotional Subjects. — Father Cotel's 
Catechism of the Beligious Vows. — Jenks' Chants and Melodies.— Father 
Bridgett's Retreat for Men, ..... 443 

The Dismal Science. — Other New Publications, .... 504 

A Saint among Saints. — ^Life of St Lewis Bertrand. — Hymn of the Sacred 
Heart. — Half-hours with the Saints and Serrants of God. — ^Lectures and 
Discourses. — ^Essays on Various Subjects, chiefly Eoman. — Duffy's Weekly 
Volume of Catholic Dirinity.— Solid Vhrtue. The Life of St. Philip 
Neri. — ABird'sEyeViewof Irish History .—The Commercial Bestraints, . 547 

The Poems of Denis Florence Mac Carthy.— The Way of Beligious Perfection 
in the Spiritual Exerdsee of St. Ignatius of Loyola.— The Foray of Queen 
MaeTe, and other Legends of Ireland's Herolo Age. — ^The Groundwork of 
the Christian Virtues.— nnde Pat's Cabin.— The Granyille Beading Book. 
Priest and Poet, and other Poems.— The Life and Times] of the Most 
BsT. John MacHale, Archbishop of Tuam^— Life of the Good Thief.— 
Aye Maria; or Catesby's Story.— The Golden Thought of Queen Bexyl. — 
The History of the Blessed Virgin Mary. — ^BnchiridionClerioorum. — ^Mary 
Beatrice. — ^Arts and Industries in Ireland, .... 649 

The Spuit of the Nation. — AJM de Brandt's Meditations.— Our American 

Exchanges, . . . .733 

The D'Altons ofj Crag — ^Flying Dutchman, and Other Poems. — Miscellaneous. 

—New Christmas Books, ....... 780 



PosHS AKD Miscellaneous Papeas. 

Qui* Cognorit ? By Sister Mary Agnes, 

Maf7 Stuart's Last Prayer. By M. B., 

St Agnes. By C. M. 0*Hara, 

Another Sonnet to St. Agnes. By Helena Callanan, 

Tlie light of the World. By F. Pentrill, 

Cbatlei in the Fire. By Helen D. Tainter, 

Three Pansies. By F. Pentrill, 

Pigeonhole Paragraphs, 

Outade. By Helen D. Tainter, 

A TTIfisiifH in Disguise. By Bath O'Connor, 



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. 16 

. 23 

. 37 

. 45 

. 46 

• 82 
96 

. 114 

. 141 

• 145 

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Vlll 



CanUnts. 



Life'iWork. BjF. M.B., . 

HMtiog and Parting: Bj P. 0., 

liUkt. By R. M>t • • • 

Three Fkir BiTali. By M. B., 

An Offering. By Helen D. Tainter, . 

Miiprints in '* A Ghat ahont Montreal," 

Luz Perpetua. By B. M., • 

On Garlyle's Beminisoenoei. By D. Mundrom, 

The Last of An Old Friend. Qy Helena OaUanan, 

Sundry Sonneti. No.YU. "Miury» Model of HnmilityJ 

The Freethinker's Ergo Brrawmtu. By D. Mundrom, 

The Wedding of the Flea and the Grub. From the Spanish. 

Florence Mao Oarthy, 
A Thought for Ascension Thursday. By Weston Beay, 
The Dying Infidel. By Sister Mary Agnes, 
Magnet and Diamond. By James Owen O'Connor, 
Borrowed Plumes, 
'< In Death not Divided," . 
Christ the Gleaner. By B. M., 
'Twixt Hope and Fear. By Ruth O'Connor, . 
My Friend. ByBthelTtoe, 
Winged Words, .... 
Dewdrop and Bose. By D., • 

Summer Flowers. By B. M., 
AlittieWhile. By Weston Beay, . 
Seeds. ByKM.,. 

To our Dear Ones with God. By Sister Mary Agnes, 
The Widow of Naim, « 

The Holy Souls. By Sister Mary Agnes,, 
Cardinal Gerontius and His Disdples. An Interchange of 
The Nightingales. ByR.M., 
Ad Te de Luce Vigilo. By Sister Mary Agnes, 
Twilight ByG.B., 

The Third Degree of Humility. By Aiooi, 
An Answer. By Helen D. Tainter, • 



By Edward Harding, 
By Denis 



FAOS 

161 
174 
186 
902 
216 
332 
342 
368 
808 
888 
400 



Compliments, 



407 
. 429 
. 468 
. 472 
481, 670 
. 600 
. 618 
. 628 
. 634 
. 636 
. 646 
. 677 



631 
648 
690 
701 
722 
742 
747 
784 
774 



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( t ) 



DEAD BBOKE: 

A TALE OF THE WESTEBX BTATE8* 

BT DILLON 0*BRlBir. 
AUTHOR OP " WBA3IK BLJLKC," " WIDOW MBLVJLLE'S BOARDWQ-HOUSK," &0. &C. 

CHAPTER L 

TWO DEAB TBIEUDS, 

BEFORE Michigan was yet a State, Doctor Eobert McGhregor emi- 
grated from Scotland and settled in the Territory. He was a 
widower, and brought with him his only child, a boy bearing his own 
name. 

Whether or not the doctor bore any relationship to [the famous 
Bob Boy McGregor, whom the genius of Scott has raised from a High- 
land cattle-lifter into a hero of romance, he certainly in no way re- 
sembled him in character, for the doctor was a quiet, honest gentleman 
somewhat reserved in manner, and withal a most excellent physician. 

Doctor Bobert McGregor's settling in this out-of-the-way Western 
little village was for some time quite a mystery to his pioneer neigh- 
bours ; for he seemed a man amply provided with means, was past the 
period when men are often led by the love of adventure to seek f ron* 
tier life, and neither in his actions or conversation was there evidence 
to denote that there was -any portion of his past he wished to forget or 
<onceaL 

The greatest mystery Mrs. Grundy — and she lives in the wilderness 
iw well as the city — can meet with, is, no mystery at all. 

The doctor evidently should have had a mystery connected with 
him, a skeleton that Mrs. Grundy would unearth, and he had not one. 

But when curiosity and conjecture died away, a better and more 
lasting feeling took their place ; namely, respect 

In truth, his residence among them was a substantial benefit to the 
settlers scattered over a wide section of country. His practice soon 
became extensive in breadth of territory at least, if not very remune- 
Tative, for fully two- thirds of his patients were always on the free list. 
Indeed, it was siud that the doctor was frequently imposed upon ; but 
I do not think so, for in his quiet way he was a keen observer, but 
not bmng a saint by any means himself, he did not look for perfection 
in others, and I am inclined to believe that he often lent himself and 
became, as it were, a party to what people, who had no earthly busi- 
ness to interfere, called imposition. 

For instance, a poor settler in the neighbourhood lost his cow, his 
^nly one ; and his wife, heretofore as healthy a wench as oi^e could 
Vol. X. No. 103, January, 1882. Digitized by Ci® OQ Ic 



2 Dead Broke. 

find in a week's journey, was very suddenly taken ill, and sent for tlie 
doctor. He went, listened to a recital of the symptoms, during which 
the loss of the cow was more than once alluded to, and then spoke ta 
her kindly and encouragingly. He left without haying ordered any 
medicine ; " but sure," as the patient remarked afterwards to a neigh- 
bour, " his kind voice was worth all the physic in a drug store," and 
the next morning a cow from' his own yard stoQd at the poor settler's 
door, and the patient was so far recovered, that on the evening of the^ 
same day she milked the cow. 

There was a little man named Solomon "Weasel living in the village, 
who, during the week, sold quantities of tea, sugar, soap, and candles 
to the villagers — and made the quantities still smaller by giving light 
weight — and on Sunday sang psalms through a long nose that started 
from its base towards Uie left, and then suddenly diverged and pointed 
to the right. I am thus minute in describing this nose, because I 
believe that its peculiar formation was a beautiful design of nature to- 
assist holy shakes. Keeping also a stock of simple medicines, he re- 
garded himself, as by right, a kind of coadjutor of the doctor's — a 
claim not at all allowed by the latter, who always avoided intimacy 
with him — and hearing of this case, and of the sudden recovery of the 
woman, he called on the doctor for the purpose of disclosing to him the^ 
'* gross imposition " that had been practised upon him, and giving 
him some friendly warnings for the future, deeming this an excellent 
opportunity to ingratiate himself into the doctor's favour. But the^ 
latter's reception of him was too chilling to make him ever wish to- 
repeat his visit. 

'* As a physician, sir," said the doctor, ''I must be the best judge 
as to the reality of the poor woman's sickness, and as the owner of the 
cow, best judge as to how to dispose of my property. * Cast your 
bread upon the waters,' sir; at all events you will allow me to cast 
my crumbs as I please." 

There were three things Dr. McGregor waa passionately fond of — 
his books, his garden, and hunting — ^tbe wild turkey and deer abound- 
ing at that time in Michigan, gave him plenty of opportunity to indulge 
in the latter amusement to his heart's content. 

As soon as the winter snow fell, the doctor set off on a tour that 
was half -prof essional and half -hunting ; so while one side of his ample 
saddle-bags contained, with a change of clothing, bullets and powder, 
{he other side was well-stocked with medicines and surgical instru- 
ments. He used to say that all the old women of the oountiy waited 
for this time to get sick, and the men to give themselves ugly cuts, 
bruises, and broken bones, and as it was the chopping season in th& 
woods, accidents no doubt were more likely to happen at this period 
than at any other. 

Whether his medical skill was required or not, the doctor's visits to 

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Dead Broke. 3 

tlie settleinents in the woods were always hailed with universal pleasure; 
indeed, not a little jealousy was evinced as to who should have the 
lionour of entertaining him, and those most favoured in this respect 
were objects of more or less envy. Of course there were favoured ones, 
mostly old hunters, that were in the habit of joining him in his hunt- 
ing excursions, when he came into their neighbourhood. Anyone of 
those would be willing to swear that he could recognise the crack of 
the doctor's rifle, and indeed it frequently happened that, guided by 
the report and the knowledge of the locality, some one of the doctor's 
rough friends would hurry off into the woods to meet him, and assist 
to carry home the game ; while the good women would tidy up the log 
oabin for this honoured guest. Then, mayhap, when the shades of 
evening were closing around, the doctor would be seen emerging from 
the forest, his rifle slung on his shoulder, while a few paces behind 
came the settler leading the doctor's stout Canadian pony, across whose 
back would be flung the body of a deer, while perchance a turkey 
gobbler ornamented its wide antlers. 

On an occasion of this kind, the doctor's arrival would be known in 
the settlement within a few hours, and during his stay in the neigh- 
bourhood, all his time within doors was occupied in receiving visits 
from the well and sick, and prescribing for the latter. 

Shortly after his arrival in Michigan, Doctor McGrregor built on the 
outskirts of the village, a substantial cottage, which he called Inver- 
ness Cottage, and to it attached an extensive garden. 

This aristocratic weakness, most innocently committed, hurt the 
republican feelings of his neighbours very much, and militated against 
his popularity ; but this feeling was only temporary, and in time the 

inhabitants of the village of P took quite a pride in showing to 

strangers visiting them, Inverness Cottage, and its well-kept garden : 
for the owner was a well-skilled botanist, and kept a hired man, whosH 
principal business it was to attend to this garden, his only other 
domestic being a middle-aged, respectable woman, who acted as house- 
keeper, and took care of his child while the latter was of an age 
requiring such attention. 

Besides the purchase of the ground on which the cottage was built. 
Doctor MoQregor from time to time had bought several lots in the 
village, and a tract of wild Government land in the immediate neigh- 
bourhood, justly surmising that in time the property secured now at 
almost nominal prices would become valuable, if not to himself, at 
least to his child. 

This boy, when he arrived with his father in the village of P , 

was a warm-hearted, imaginative little fellow, quick to make friends, 
and to believe in them implicitly, and this trust, common to childhood, 
he carried with him into maturer years. 

There were many circumstances in his bringing up which tended to 

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4 Dead Broke. 

develop all tliat was romantic in his nature, and to let that shrewdness 
and common-sense — for which the Scotch character is proverbial — ^lie 
dormant. 

He attended the village school and learned rapidly; and when of 
a proper age, his father instructed him at home. 

Doctor McGregor had brought with him from Scotland a supply of 
books quite sufficient to fill one side of his study in the cottage, leaving 
room, however, between the top of the bookcase and the ceiling 
for the antlered heads of deer, trophies of the chase; while on 
the opposite side were ranged rifles and shot-guns ; on this side, too, 
was a large bay-window looking out upon the garden. This room was 
the favourite resort of father and son, both in winter and summer. 
Here the doctor, reclining in his large arm-chair — after a morning's 
work among his flowers in the garden — would read some favourite 
author, or in the evening hear his son recite his lessons ; and here, 
during the winter evenings, when his father was off on one of his 
hunting expeditions, or attending a professional call, young Boberfc 
might be often seen sitting opposite the wide fire-place — whose huge 
back log and crackling faggots gave out a warm blaze — quite absorbed 
in one of Sir Walter Scott's historical romances, Burns* ballads, or 
one of Cowper's bewitching stories of the sea or forest. 

Such hours were, perhaps, the happiest in the boy's life, but the 
most dangerous for his future success in this matter-of-fact Yankee 
land ; nor as he sat there was there an uninteresting picture to look in 
upon : the large fireplace, the ruddy blaze throwing out its flickering 
light and shadow, to dance in grotesque forms along the walls and 
curtains, now glancing along the polished gun barrels, or lighting up 
with a mockery of life, the glass eyes of the stag's heads, and the 
slight form in the ample, old-fashioned chair with intense interest rest- 
ing on every feature of the young face. 

Left a good deal to himself, and allowed to spend his hours of re* 
creation as his fancy might dictate, with an imaginative mind and 
affectionate disposition, there was much in this boy's surroundings to 
develop a romantic nature, that loved to ^fashion out of the realitieB 
around an ideal world of its own. 

For him the primeval forest surrounding his home was at his plea* 
sure peopled with brave knights and fair " ladyes ;" along the blazed 
path through the wood, he saw the tall form of ** Le Longue Cara* 
bine" advancing, his unerring rifle slung over |his shoulder; or 
watdied *'LeiGros Serpent" stretched beneath a giant tree, while 
" Uncas," his dark, sad eyes looking intospace, listened to his father's 
recital of the departed greatness of the Mohicans. 

In truth, young Kobert McGregor was in a fair way to become the 
veriest dreamer that ever was, but for one healthy influence, the friend- 
ship of a boy about his own age, and the very opposite to him in many 
traits of character. ^.^^^^ ^^ GoOglc 



Dead Broke. 5 

If Bobert Mc(}regor gave promise of being one of life's dreamers^ 
•James Allen, or Tim, as he was known by his friends, was evidently 
cut out for one of its workers ; there was energy in every nerve of his 
little body, as he scampered home after school to do his chores. 

His father, John Allen, was the village blacksmith, an honest son 
of Vulcan, liked by his neighbours, and earning at his trade a suffi- 
•ciency to keep his family respectable and above want. He had lost 
several children, and when Doctor McGhregor came to reside in the 
village, the blacksmith's home contained but himself, his wife, and 
this, his only child. 

Alien had a great respect for the doctor, and their intercourse was 
-always of the most friendly nature, a state of feeling which may have 
had its origin in the fact that the blacksmith was of Scotch descent, 
4>at which required no such auxiliary to make it lasting. 

Frequently in the fall, returning from a day's partridge shooting 
in the woods, the doctor, late in the afternoon, would drop into the 
blacksmith's shop to have a friendly chat, and there remain sometimes 
*antil the shades of evening fell, carelessly leaning against the wall, 
his dog lying at his feet, and his hands resting on his gun, while the 
-sturdy blacksmith drew the glowing bar of iron from the fire, and with 
lusty strokes sent the red sparks flying around the forge, the cheerful 
ring of the hammer making a fitting accompaniment to his loud voice 
and meny laugh. 

On certain Scotch festivals, too^ the doctor always gave him a formal 
invitation to take a glass of Scotch toddy with him in his study, but 
notwithstanding the exhilarating influence which the toddy might be 
•expected to exercise, the honest fellow's laugh was never half so hearty 
-on these occasions as when the doctor visited him in his own smithy or 
his own house. Having a general and warm invitation to do so, Allen 
in the summer months — when the doctor's garden was clothed in all 
its glory — ^would bring his wife on Sunday afternoons to visit it, 
Jim in his best clothes, walking with restrained steps by the side of his 
mother, while health and half an hour's application of a coarse towel 
made his father's face glow like one of his own heated irons. If the 
-doctor was at home, he veiy likely joined them in the garden, when 
•after a little Mrs. Allen would go into the house to pay a visit to the 
housekeeper, and the two men would continue their walk up and down 
the garden, discussing the news of the day, the growth of the village, 
and the prospect of the crops, now and then stopping to look at a 
shrub or flower, while the doctor imparted scraps of botanical know- 
ledge to his friend, which was received by the latter with great respect, 
albeit the knowledge thus conveyed passed from his mind as quickly 
as water through a sieve. 

But there was one who was always on the watch for such visits, 
-doubtless having previous intimation of them. 

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6 Dead Broke, 

No sooner had the blacksmith opened the side gate and entered the 
garden with his family, than Eobert McGregor would issue from the 
house, and go bounding down the walk, when he would be met half- 
way by Jim, in an equally impetuous manner, making a collision — 
sometimes resulting in the shortest possible sojourn in a prickly goose- 
berry bush— of frequent occurrence ; then when damages were repaired^ 
both boys were off to the woods, the garden being altogether too small 
for a display of their youthful energies, and would not again make 
their appearance till hunger drove them home. 

On occasions of this kind they were met sometimes on the outskirts 
of the forest, by Solomon Weasel, who went there, as he said, " for 
sweet meditation," never, however, venturing beyond the clearings, 
for he was a timid little creature, and though his faith was strongs 
his fear of beai-s and catamounts was stronger. 

As the boys approached him, leaping over logs, beating the brush 
with branches, striking at a snake as he crossed their path, and then 
fling his dead body far off into the brush, the little man's face would 
grow several shades more sour, and in a harsh, whining voice, he 
would reprove them for " their wilful levity on the Lord's day," as if 
He who makes the flowers to give forth their fragrance, and the birds 
their songs on the Sabbath, did not intend that on this day, above all 
others, man, resting from his labours, should rejoice amid the beauties 
of the earthly inheritance his Creator has given him. But Jim, with 
a hardened levity, unpardonable in one so young, would interrupt the 
pious reproof with a loud Indian war-hoop, and then in several somer- 
saults and complicated evolutions, disappear from the good man's eyes, 
followed by Bobert. 

I have said that in many traits of character these boys were essen- 
tially different ; however, they had excellent points in common, which 
helped to cement their friendship, both were manly, ^truthful, and. 
affectionate, but in appearance there was not the slightest resemblance.. 
Robert McGregor was tall for his age, with a slight elastic figure. In 
fact, he bore a striking likeness to the portrait of his mother, which 
hung in his father's library, a calm face that might grow very sad, yet 
whose smooth surface denoted that care had not written on it roughly, 
with dark full eyes, an expressive mouth, and an exquisitely chiseled 
chin. This was the portrait of a delicate reflned woman ; and her son,, 
grown up in the woods, habituated to the roughness of western life,, 
his face browned by the summer's sun, his features made coarse by 
continual and healthful exposure in the open air, bore still a striking 
resemblance to it. 

James AUen, on the other hand, was short and thick, with the 
shoulders and arm? f a young Hercules ; his complexion was what is 
called red and white, and although the sun waged a successful war 
against his turned-u nose, peeling the skin off several times during 



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Dead Broke. j 

the summer, it never succeeded in making his complexion one shade^ 
darker ; his eyes were light grey, and he had the most obstinate, 
perverse, tmmanageable red hair that ever bristled on a boy's head ! 
Like Banquo's ghost, " it would not down/' 

These two boys, so different in nature and appearance, were fast 
friends from the time they first met as children, and each exercised an 
improving influence upon the other. The practical energy and shrewd 
common sense of Jim— qualities which become so much earlier de- 
Teloped in the children of poor people than in those of the rich — had a 
salutary effect in checking his friend's excursions into dreamland, and 
dispelling his romantic visions, while the more refined organisation of 
Itobert McGregor, together with that ease of manner which he had 
acquired from close intercourse with his father, had a certain elevat-^ 
ing effect on the mind of the blacksmith*s son, a polishing of the rough 
diamond without injuring its value. At school they sat on the same- 
bench, and fought side by side in the playground. Eobert would 
never strike his adversary while down, it was unknightly ; but Jim had 
no such refined feelings, and pommeled away with his little sledge 
hammer fists, whether the enemy was on his feet or his back. 

Even Cupid failed to divide these two friends. 

Both were warm admirers of Lucy Evans, a little orphan maiden, 
who lived with her aunt, a poor woman who had a house full of 
younger children of her own to care for, but nevertheless contrived,. 
her husband being a sober, hard working man, to keep Lucy neatly 
dressed. Lucy, indeed, was naturally so tidy a little body that any 
kind of dress would look well upon her. 

Both boys were her champions at school, Bobert assisted her with 
her lessons, lent her books to read ; Jim carried off her sleigh to his 
father's shop, and with some assistance from the latter, shod it. But, 
alas ! when did cold gratitude compete with warm fancy, without being^ 
obliged to succumb ? The very next day when Lucy appeared on the 
school-house hill with the newly- shod sleigh, it was Eobert she invited 
to accompany her, and guide the sleigh. 

Down they went, swiftly coasting to the foot of the long, high hill, 
then slowly back, dragging the sleigh after them, slipping and laugh- 
ing at every step, then down and up again, until the cheeks of the 
little maiden shamed the red lining of her hood, and her eyes sparkled 
brighter than the diamond hoar frost hanging from the boughs — so- 
she appeared to Jim who stood watching them. 

As they ascended the hill for the fourth or fifth time, Eobert look- 
ing up, saw Jim standing all alone, and in a moment he remembered 
that it was Jim who had shod this very sleigh for Lucy, and that slie 
bad not yet asked him to take a ride on it ; so he said : *' Lucy, it ia 
Jim's turn next, he has not got a ride yet ;" she gave a half sliriig to 
her pretfy little shoulders, just as any other spoiled belle, much older, 



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"8 Dead Broke. 

-might have done, at which Eobert looked cross, and said: " Why, you 
inow, Lucy, the trouble he took to iron your sleigh." 

** Oh, yes," said Lucy ; **but I think you steer better." 

" K^o I don't ;" said Robert; " halloo, Jim, come and steer Lucy," 
and away he went, to join another party, and away went Jim and Lucy 
•down the hill. 

That same evening, as Jim was preparing; for supper, and looking 
in a cracked glass, endeavoured to get the unmanageable red hair to 
lie down, he said to himself j '' She likes Bobert twice as well, and 
she's right." 

When llobert was thirteen years of age, although he still continued 
-to attend the public school, his father commenced to superintend his 
education at home. At the earnest request of his son, the doctor pro- 
posed to Allen that James should study with the former, but the 
blacksmith, resting his hands on his ponderous sledge, shook his head 
as he replied : " Thank you, doctor, but no Latin or Greek for Jim ; 
what good would they do the boy ? He must work at the anvil, like 
bis father and grandfather before him, and too much learning would 
make him upsettish-like. In two years or so, I will take him into 
^he shop to help me ; he is handy in it already." 

" He is a very good, manly, little fellow," said the doctor, " and I 
am very glad he and Kobert are such good friends." 

' ' Well, but aren't they, doctor ?" replied the blacksmith. " I never 
saw the beat of it. I wonder how it will be when Robert is a fine 
gentleman, and Jim hammering away at the anvil. What are you 
going to make of Robert, doctor ?" 

** I will allow him to make his own choice ; but first I shall try to 
give him as good an education as I can. Perhaps you are right about 
the Latin and Greek, but I have a pretty good stock of books, histories, 
4ind works on practical science, and Jim is as welcome to their use as 
my own son, so I advise you to give him as much time for reading 
with Robert as you can." 

'* Well, it wouldn't be very easy to keep them asunder," replied 
the blacksmith, with a jolly laugh. And so it turned out that, while 
Robert was engaged in study, according to the system his father had 
marked out for him, James was frequently reading some book, selected 
by himself, generally a work treating on some branch of practical 
science. As for Robert's highly prized romances, he utterly ignored 
them, either from want of taste for such reading, or because Robert, 
by oral instruction, and continually spouting passages from his favour* 
ite authors, during their rambles in the woods, had given him a 
fiurfeit of this kind of literature. 

This reading in the cosy study on winter evenings was pleasant 
work. When the doctor was present, absorbed in his book, the boys 
would pass from reading to converse in low tones with one another ; 

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Dead Broke. g, 

sometimes plans for the future were discussed, without any veiy defi- 
nite conclusions being arrived at, at least as far as Bobert was. 
ooncemed. One scrap of conversation will illustrate many similar 
ones* 

" What will you be, Eobert, when you are a man ?" asked James 
one evening, while the doctor dozed in his chair, and the boys whispered 
in a comer in tmder tones not to disturb him. 

" I don't know. I'll tell you what, I would like to have been one 
of those splendid knights of old, with belted sword and lance, and 
pennon gaiJy flying, riding forth on my fiery steed. But those days 
are all past." 

" Small loss," said Jim. 

" What would you like to be, Jim ?" 

" A machinest, and I will be one. Father will soon take me into 
the ahop, but I'm bound to know something more than blacksmith's 
irotrk. Did you read about the * fly wheel,' Eobert ? 

"No; what fly wheel?" 

''What fly-wheel?" repeated James, indignantly. "Why, the 
fly-wheel which regulates all the machineiy in one of those big facto- 
ries down East. I was reading an account of it when you called me 
over. It's more useful in the world than your crack-brained knights 
over were." 

"But, Jim, if you are a machinest, your face will be always 
black." 

*• Soap is cheap," answered Jim, " and I can wash it. I'm not 
like you, Eobert ; my father is a workman, and I'm going to be one. 
Tour father is a big bug, and I suppose he can make one of you if he 
likes." 

" I wish, Jim," said Eobert, " that you would not call my father 
-a big bug.'" 

"Why not?" 

" Because he is a gentleman." 

" What is the difference ?" 

" Why, any fellow with money can be ' a big bug,' but it takes a 
gentleman to be a gentleman." 

This very lucid explanation seemed to bother Jim for a moment, 
then he asked : " Can a machinest be a gentleman, Eobert ?" 

'* Yes, he can," said his friend. 

" Then see, Mr. Eobert, if I won't be a gentleman as well as the 
best of you." 

The latter part of this conversation was held considerably above a 
whisper, and reached the doctor's ears. He called Jim over to him, 
and the boy, with a flushed face at being overheard by the doctor, 
stood before him and looked full into his eyes. 

The old gentleman laid his hand kindly on the boy's shoulder. 

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lo Dead Broke. 

" Be a true man in everything, Tames/' he said, '^ and you will be 
41 gentleman." 

And in all his after-life, amid rough companions and wild scenee, 
these words were never forgotten by him to whom they were addressed* 



CHAPTEE n. 

THE 3CAT0B OP P — 



Time sped on, making changes in the village of P as elsewhere. 

Indeed change, growth, and development is the normal state of the 
IVest. No settling down for any length of time out West in a quiet 
little village, and being on familiar terms with its one constable, 
whose public duties are so light as to allow him to unbend from the 
dignity of official position, and bring to you your weekly or tri-weeklj 
mail on the arrival of the stage ; a condescension which weakens the 
authority of this public functionary with the urchins who crowd 
.around the stage on its arrival, deeming it to have come from some 
very distant country, and looking upon its driver as a very wonderful 
traveller indeed, whose unbroken vocabulary of oaths excites their 
admiration and emulation. No sooner do you settle in your out-of-the- 
way Western little village, escaped, as you foolishly imagine, from 
politicians, lawyers, editors, and all the other ills of civilisation, and 
bug yourself with the idea that the world may wag on without you, 
Ihan it comes wagging right into your retreat. Engineers, without 
as much as by your leave, plant their instruments in your flower-beds, 
and an unsightly brown three-story elevator goes up in front of your 
cottage, shutting out all view. 

A railway director, in your very presence, pointing his finger towards 
your house, says, quite coolly, to an engineer : " We must get that out 
of the way, Thompson." The swift-flowing, pure river that you 
called, after Bryant's beautiful poem, " The Green Eiver," becomes 
the dirtiest, noisiest place in the whole neighbourhood, from the mills 
built along its banks. Lawyers and insurance agents flock in ; law- 
suits and fires prevail. Two newspapers continually ^proclaim to the 
world that the human intellect is altogether too limited to comprehend 
in the remotest degree the future greatness of Frogtown. And where 
jou fished for trout speculators fish for gudgeons. 

A few years after Doctor McGregor had settled in Michigan it 
became a State, and the village of P began to grow into the pro- 
portions of quite a respectable-sized town. So that after a while his 
cottage was no longer in the suburbs but surrounded with brick houses 
of far greater pretensions. However, it still had its beautiful garden, 
which, despite its red brick neighbours, retained for it its rural 



appearance. 

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Dead Broke. 1 1 

By the time that P had fifteen hundred inhabitants — and 

•claimed three thonsand — it had a fire brigade, a bank, several societies 
— ^the latter of great benefit to numerous saloons, and of great detri- 
^ment to domestic happiness — and two newspapers, Th$ Banner of 
Freedom, and The Ihtmpet of Liberty. 

Then the ambition of P rose in its majesty, and through its 

member it applied to the Legislature for a city charter. 

It was a mere matter of form to obtain such, for I have known a 
UVestem city with but one tumble-down shanty in it, nevertheless, on 
this occasion, the honourable member representing the district in 

-which P was, deemed it due ''to the glorious state, whose dtizen 

lie was, to the republic — ^the home of freedom, the dread of tyrants— 
^which has lately added this beauteous gem to its diadem, to the in- 
fluential and intelligent constituents who had so honoured him as to 
elect him as their representative, an honour altogether imsought by 
him " (he had spent a considerable sum in forty-rod whisky, and six 
months in electioneering for the nomination) to depict in a speech of 
an hour and a half, and replete with bombast, slang, and bad grammar, 

the future greatness of P , as the '* emporium of commerce, the 

•seat of learning, and the stronghold of republican liberty,'' and con- 
^cluded with a glowing panegyric on the ''American Eagle,'' as the 
noble bird disappeared in the lofty clouds of the honourable gentle- 
Tuan's eloquence. 

This speech was received in P with conflicting opinions, accord- 
ing to the political feeling of its critics. 

The editor of the Banner of Freedom (Eepublican) pronounced it 
'' the best effort of our gifted member, the Hon. Columbus Stubbles, 
4uid deemed that without doubt the occasion did much to inspire his 
eloquent tongue;'' while the editor of The Thmpet of Liberty (Demo- 
crat) " thought that old Stubbles must have been drunk ^when he 
talked such downright balderdash." 

" As an orater and debater, the Hon. Columbus Stubbles has by 
this speech made his mark," said the Banner of Freedom, 

** He has made a downright ass of himself," said the Trumpet of 
jAherty. 

However, P got its charter, and set about electing its mayor 

and city ooimcil. 

The names of the two editors in P were whimsically appropriate. 

Dumpling, the editor of the Banner, was exceedingly i^ort and fat, 
while Crane, the editor of the IVumpet, was in an equal degree tall and 
thin. These personal characteristics were the objective points that 
they generally selected in their perpetual wordy war with each other; 
sometimes one or other of them would be able to make an accusation 
against his brother editor, more damaging than anything connected 
with personal appearance, and such opportunities were eageriy sought 

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12 Dead Broke. 

for, but the leanness or fatness of tlie party attacked generally 
supplied the adjectives of the damaging articles. Crane did not 
believe that he would be performing his duty to society by simply 
proving to the world that Dumpling was a ruffian, he must 
prove him to be a ** fat ruffian ;*' while in an article of two 
colimins' length, in the Banner^ in which Dumpling conclusively 
convicted Crane of arson, murder, bigamy, and petty larceny,, 
he closed by saying: "We don't believe that we have left 
the lean rascal a hole small enough for him to crawl through." In 
their more playful sallies. Crane feared that if Dumpling put so much 
of his nature (lard) into his articles, they would disagree with his few 
readers, and Dumpling announced in the Banner , under the head of 
" singular accident," that the editor of the Trumpet, in rushing down 
stairs to meet his only cash contributor, came in contact with the latter,, 
and nearly cut him in two. 

At this time, in the West, country editors were mostly paid by their 
subscribers in produce, a cord of wood being deemed an equivalent for 
a year's subscription, butter and vegetables rating according to the 
market ; subscribers were artfully eirticed into adding to the regular 
tariff by presents, which were duly acknowledged by the editor, the 
Talue of the present regulating the length of the notice and the praise 
bestowed on the donor. A good-sized crock of butter was deemed 
worthy of a leader containing a short biography of " the upright 
citizen and valued friend " who presented it, while a dozen or two of 
eggs would elicit something like the following : ** Our jolly friend^ 
Farmer Grubs, laid on our table last week a dozen of beautiful turkey 
eggs ; thanks, friend Grubs, call again." Of course, the wonderful 
Grubs, quite proud at seeing his name in print, called and laid again. 
Dumpling, being of a more genial humour than his rival editor, 
presents came into ^e sanctum of the Banner far of tener than into that 
of the Trumpet. What a pleasant way Dumpling had, to be sure, of re* 
ceiving such presents ; anything eatable he would smack his lips over, 
rub his hands, smile all over, and punch his patron softly in the 
ribs. Then, when the latter had withdrawn. Dumpling would wink, 
with one of his fat eyes, over at his solitary compositor, and say i 
'Tm the fellow that can tickle them." But such undignified conduct 
was altogether beneath the editor of the Trumpet of Liberty. " I 
advocate principles, sir," he would say. "The Trumpet is the 
organ of great principles ; principles, sir, which you cannot eradicate- 
from the THuipet, without tearing down the pillars of the Kepublic ; 
principles which the Trumpet cannot abandon for a cord of wood or a 
fat turkey," and he laughed bitterly, thinking of the plump bird ho 
saw carried into the office of the Banner the day before. 

The first election for city officers was a great event in P , and 

"•uring the local canvass that preceded it, Crane and aU the younj^ 

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Dead Broke. 13 

Cranes liieiallj fed on the fat of the land ; for the Democratio oandi* 
dite for mayor, was a butober of the name of Thompson, and the 
editor of The Trumpet of Liberty had for the time being unlimited 
ersdit at his shop. 

Solomon Weasel had secured the Whig nomination, and in the 
words of Dumpling, ''The country, with bated breath, awaited the 



Had the management of the oontest been left between the two 
candidates, Thompson would undoubtedly have beaten Solomon 
Weasel out of sight, for the former was a free-hearted fellow, and 

treated liberally ; but the politicians of P sided with the latter, 

mnd having denounced Thompson for attempting to corrupt the people 
with drink, they went to work and saved a good many of the voters 
from such degradation, by buying them over to vote for their candi- 
date. Solomon Weasel was elected mayor of the city of P , and 

Hiree others, among whom was John Allen, the blacksmith, aldermen. 

The great contest was over, the world moved on, the country again 
drew its breath in a natural way, the editor of the Banner was jubi- 
lant^ and the editor of the Trumpet returned to vegetable diet. 

'Mean, little souls never forget a supposed insult or slight, and his 

lumour, the Mayor of P , was no exception to this. He had never 

forgotten the cold reception he met with when he called upon Doctor 
McGregor, or how the latter always avoided any familiarity with him, 
and he had scarcely been installed in office when he began debating in 
Ids own mind if it was not possible, in his official capacity, to '^ get 
even " with the man he so thoroughly hated. It was not long until a 
]dttn occurred to him, one which he firmly believed would annoy the 
doctor so much, that the very contemplation of it brought a warm 
^aw to his pinched face. It was nothing more or less than getting 
the council to pass an ordinance for the opening of a new street, which 
would "run through the doctor's garden, cutting it right in two. 

''Inverness Cottage, to be sure," he said; ''see if I don't come 
e?en with you, you old Scotch aristocrat." He waited for about a 
month to mature his plan, in the meantime discussing with the citizens 
the necessity of opening new streets; and then, not without some 
wholesome dread of John Allen, submitted it to the three aldermen in 
council, having previously secured the support of the other two. 

The mayor was right in f esuring John Allen's opposition. When 
fhe honest blacksmith had studied the diagram prepared by Solomon 
lie exclaimed in tones of surprise and indignation ; " Why, Mr. Mayor, 
Hub new street would go right through Dr. McGregor's garden." 
** Welly what of that?'' replied one of the aldermen ; '^ I guess public 
improvements can't be stopped by any man's garden." 
*^ Thafs what I say," said Sims, the other alderman. 
" That's the very view to take, gentlemen,*' said the m^yor, mpv- 

TOL. X., No. 103. Digitized by CjOOg IC 



14 Dead Broke. 

ing away until he placed one of the aldermen between himself and 
Allen, for the latter, as he perceived how matters stood, was beginning 
to look dangerous; '' I shall leave the whole matter in your hands; 
public duly, and the interests of our growing city, were my only 
motives for bringing it before you.** 

'* You lie, Solomon Weasel," said the bladcsmith, jumping up, and 
totally forgetful in his rage of the respect due to the august body of 
which he was a member, and to the mayor. " You lie ; you are doing 
this through spite, because Dr. McGhregor always knew you to be a 
sneaking hypocrite and thief, and treated you as you deserved." 

^' Older, order," said one of the aldermen, vainly looking around 
to see if assistance was at hand. 

'' Oh, Mr. Allen, Mr. Allen," exclaimed Sims, pale with fright. 
Weak as his honour, the mayor's limbs were with fear, he would 
have made for the door, but that the burly form of the smith was 
between him and it, and the windows were too high to leap from. 

'* Order be ," continued the smith. " Why, this garden is 

the pride of P ^ and the old man loves it; have you spoken to him 

about this new street?" 

<*No," replied the mayor, 

'' Ah, that's like you, and shows your motive," said Allen. 
'' I think we had better adjourn," said Sims. '' I will call on Dr. 
McGregor myself about the matter, before we take any further steps." 
While the motion to adjourn was being put and carried, Solomon 
Weasel effected his escape &om the council-room. *' I'll be even with 
him yet," said he, as he hastened home ; then, when he was under the 
protection of his own roof, his courage returned, and he fairly swelled 
with rage as he thought of the indignity with which the blacksmith 

had treated the Mayor of P . " I will have the rascal arrested," 

he said. ^'I will take an action against him for libel; I will have 
him prosecuted for assault and battery ; I wiU have him expelled the 
council ; I will have him botmd over to keep the peace ; I will be even 
with him and that old stuck-up doctor yet ; 111 have two constables 
in the room the next time the question of opening the new street 
comes up ; see if I don't get even with them all yet." But 

'* The beet laid tchemee of mice and men, 
Gang aft aglee." 

Doctor McGregor attended the next meeting of the council, and not 
alone consented to the opening of the street, but actually advocated it 
as a necessary improvement. '< I have perceived for some time back/' 
he said, " as our town grew, that my cottage was no longer in the 
suburbs, and that it would be necessary to curtail the size of mj 
-arden. That portion of it which wiU be taken for the new street, I 
eerfully donate to the city, and " (taking up his hat and bowing 



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Dead Broke. 15 

politely to the aldermen), ''you shall have the deed of it, gentle- 
men, any time you please.'' 

" Well," said Alderman Sims, when the doctor had withdrawn, 
''the doctor is a gentleman, and a good citizen, every inch of 
him.'' 

" Yes," replied John Allen, looking over to where Weasel sat, 
flanked by two constables, and looking quite dumbfounded at the 
turn events had taken. " Yes, you won't find many like him ; but it's 
a thousand pities to cut up that beautiful garden. Many a pleasant 
hour I spent in it with the doctor ;" and the scowl with which he had 
regarded the mayor a moment before, passed away from his face, and 
gave place to a soft, thoughtful look. 

The new street was opened, and, the lower portion of Doctor 
McGhregor's garden which it cut off from his cottage, he had divided 
into building lots ; these were quickly disposed of, and the doctor rea- 
lised a condderable sum out of the sales, while the shrunk garden 
looked, if possible, tidier and more bloomin(^ than ever, and certainly 
more in conformity with the size of the cottage. 

Thus Solomon Weasel, his honour ! the Mayor of P , got even 

with the doctor ; and it would be well if every malicious rascal could 
get even with others the same way. 

Somehow the whole story got abroad, with many additions. Solo- 
mon Weasel*s threats to get even with the doctor had been frequently 
heard by his cronies, who, of course, retailed them, and as American 
boys neither fear Gh>d nor the devil, much less a mayor, Solomon's 
dignity was often sorely hurt by urchins, bawling from the comers of 
streets: " Say, Weasel, how did you get even with Doctor 
McGregor?" 

Indeed, after a few years, it became the popular belief of P , 

that Weasel had made Doctor McGregor^s fortune ; until hearing it 
said so often, the ez-mayor came to believe it himself, which so 
worried him, that he took to drink and died, not in the odour of 
sanctity, but of bad whiskey* 



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( 16 ) 



QUIS COGNOVIT? 

BY SISTER MART AGNES. 

" Thy knowledge is become too wonderful for me. It is strong and bigh, and I 
cannot attain to it" — Ps. czxxriii. 

THOU knowest all things, Lord, and we 
The wisest of us but a part 
Of all the deep, mysterious things 

Laid up within thy iSacred Heart. 
We grasp so little at a time, 

Earth-light blinds even saintly eyes ; 
But all things are by Thee beheld 
Without dissemblance or disguise. 

As, when we climb earth's loftiest point. 

To gaze upon the scene below, 
*Tis but a fraction of the whole 

O'er which our feeble sight can go : 
So when we look on thy decrees 

Ev'n from the heights of sanctity, 
Their confines are beyond our reach 

Stretching into infinity. 

As when at noon the summer sun 

Bathes half the world with golden light, 
The other half remaineth hid 

Within the sombre clouds of night : 
So we, though lighted by the rays 

Of thy great Revelation's sun, 
See but a few and scattered threads 

From which thy vast designs are spun. 

The eagle, borne on pinions strong, 

Highest of feathered creatures flies, 
Yet judged by measurements of space 

Seems hardly from the earth to rise ; 
And e'en those souls that nearest soar 

Unto thy dread Divinity, 
Adore thy eoimsels' mysteries 

But search not their sublimity. 

Thus with thy workings in our hearts, 

And thy designs upon each soul. 
Thou knewest all ere we were bom 

And boldest all in thy control : 



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An Old Stone. 17 



But we, although we dimly see 
Thy guidings as each day is done. 

Beading thy writing on our souls, 
Spell out the letters one by one. 

Then, since we feel our weakness, Lord, 

Make us upon thy strength to rest, 
Confiding blindly in thy care, 

Elnowing thy ways are ever best. 
And, since a creature's bliss is found 

Fulfilling all thy Will commands. 
Make us in absolute content 

Leave past and future in thy hands. 



AN OLD STONE. 



BY F. S. D. AMES, 

AUTHOR OF *' MABXON UOWAUD," &C. 

ALTHOUQH the English people have been taught to abhor relics, 
they have been permitted to cultivate a taste for lions, and day 
after day groups of persons gather round a certain old stone, that 
stands in 8t. Edward's chapel in Westminster Abbey, and regard 
it as a yezy great lion indeed. Kot that its leonine qualities 
appear by any means on the surface. It is only a very ordinary 
looking stone, twenty-six inches long, sixteen broad, and ten and 
a half deep, somewhat worn away, yet bearing marks, in the 
opinion of many, of having at some time been chiselled. Even 
when described at the fullest it is only ''of a dull reddish or 
purplish sandstone, with a few embedded pebbles, one of which is 
quartz, and two others of a dark material, which may be Lydian stone. 
The rock is calcareous, and is of the kind masons would call freestone." 
So that, including what it positively is — ^pebbles and all — ^and some- 
thing of what it possibly may be, the man of science sums it up in 
three or four lines. 

Yet, all unpretending as our old stone is, the crowd gazes at it with 
reverential awe, as well as at the wooden chair, to which it forms a 
elumsy, uncomfortable seat. '' In this chair and on this stone," has 
just said the conducting verger, '' every English sovereign, from 
Edward I. to Victoria, has been crowned." And so the cipwd wBars 

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i8 An Old Stone. 

an admiring look, for the English public dearly lovee a king. It will 
stand in the rain for half a day at a time to see the royal carriages go 
by, and will consent to hustling and stifling for an hour to obtain a 
passing glance at the crown jewels. Hardly a man so lowly but he 
has seen the state apartments at Windsor, rarely a man so poor but 
he has paid his shilling to see Madame Tussaud's waxen dynasty. 
Poor John Bull I Alas ! for the heresy that has left his really rever- 
ential heart little else to reverence but su ch things as these ! 

And so that ugly old chair is the Coronation Chair of England, and, 
what is far more interesting to us, that still uglier stone beneath it is 
the Coronation Stone. Far more interesting, too, we opine, to the 
man of science and the antiquary, as well as to the Irishman, the 
Scot, or the Israelite, should any such chance to be standing in the crowd. 
To that geologist, for instance, to whom pillar, arch, and sculptured stone 
are only so many good specimens spoiled, and who has hitherto gazed 
around him with an indifferent eye. In this stone, however, he is per- 
sonally interested, since his science has been invoked to aid in silenc- 
ing the contention of ages concerning its origin. So he stands, and 
with folded arms, scans it with a professional eye, until thousands and 
tens of thousands of years are annihilated, and he flashes back to that 
old Devonian period to which he traces its birth. The abbey, the 
chapel, the chair all disappear, and he flnds himself in imagination 
amid the magniflcent but dreary scenery of that era when the waters 
had just been ''gathered together/* and the "dry land" appeared. 
Instead of the marble floor of the abbey, he sees an island just re- 
deemed from the sea, the moist soil of which is decked with a carpet 
of richest verdure, while forests of tree-mosses rear their weird-looking 
forms around him, spreading their wiry air- roots far and wide. The 
angry ocean, boiling and roaring beneath a tempest such as has never 
been witnessed since those primeval days, seems to rejoice over the 
monsters beginning to teem in its bosom ; while the sun pours down 
on the steaming earth, with a fervour that would scorch any mass less 
saturated. Such is the world to which our geologist wanders in his 
reveries, and from which the chatter of the verger fails to arouse him. 
What are the Plantagenets and Tudors to a man, for whom the kings 
of Nineveh and Babylon are only things of to-day, '' animals of the 
alluvium?" 

If again, as we have just said, there should chance to be a son of 
Israel among the bystanders, he, too, will have his associations with 
our stone, and those of no common order. For one of the old legends 
concerning it relates (and the name of such legends is legion), that 
it was the identical stone that formed the pillow of the patriarch 
Jacob, at Bethel, and which he afterwards set up as a pillar, and 
anointed with oil. A Jewish tradition relates that it was afterwards 
placed in the sacred temple of Jerusalem, and used as a pedestal to 

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An Old Stone. 19 

mpport the Ark of the Oovenant. Singular as this legend is, there 
are, nevertheleBs, a goodly number of a new sect who profess to see in 
the presence of Jacob's pillar in Westminster Abbey, a pioof that the 
Soglish nation is composed of the lost ten tribes of Israel. What 
their reason is for such an hypothesis we ,do not know, nor are we 
likely to find out, since it is contained in certain hieroglyphics on the 
great pyramidi which these wiseacres read in their own fashion, and 
irhich ^ey have recently discovered to be a key to the history of the 
irorld, pasty present, and future. Whatever benefits, however, they 
anticipate from the discovery — and one is that the English are to 
migrate to Jerusalem — the Irishman is rigorously to be excluded from 
all participation in them. On inquiring of an enthusiastic believer, 
a short time since, what part or lot was to fall to the Irishman in the 
general rush eastward, the writer was curtly informed, '' nothing at 
wJlf the Irish having been proved to be descended from the Canaanites.'' 
Surely of all the vagaries of this nineteenth century this new doctrine 
is not the least absurd. • 

But, strange to say, the Irishman is the very man whom the old 
Isgend next proceeds to introduce ; for, according to the late Dean of 
Westminster, one version of the story (that disclaims the Jewish 
legend concerning the sacred temple), continues : '* The stony piUar 
on which Jacob slept at Bethel, was by his countrymen transported to 
S^gypt. Thither came Gathelus, son of Gecrops, King of Athens, and 
married Scota, daughter of Pharoah. Gathelus and his Egyptian wife, 
alarmed at the fame of Moses, fied with the stone to Sicily or Spain. 
from Brigantia, in Spain, it was carried ofP by Simon Breck, the favour- 
ite son of Milo the Scot, to Ireland. It was thrown on the sea^shore 
as an anchor, or (for the legend varies at this point), an anchor, which 
iras cast out in consequence of a rising storm, pulled up the stone from 
the bottom of the sea. On the sacred hill of Tara it became * Lia 
Fail,' the Stone of Destiny. On it the kings of Ireland were placed. 
If the chief were a true successor, the stone was silent ; if a pretender, 
it groaned aloud with thunder.'' At this point when the legend begins 
to pass into history, the voice of national discord begins to make itself 
heard. The Irish antiquarians maintain that the true stone long re- 
mained on the Hill of Tara. Others, however, consider that although 
the Coronation stone was probably at one time on the sacred hill, it 
was not the same as the stone of destiny. The true Lia FaiJ, they 
oontend,* remains there still, in the rude pillar that surmounts the 
green mound, known as the *^ coronation chair," and which has been 
made a monument to the memory of those heroic ** United Irishmen " 
irho fell in the battle of Tara, on the 26th of May, 1798. 

Another legend, disclaiming Milo, Tara, and everything else of the 

* See Note at the end of this paper. 

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20 An Old Stone. 

■orCi gives a much more pious and proper origin to our stone, bj 
asserting it to be the altar-stone of Bonif acius or Ouritan, a missionarf 
bishop, supposed to have been sent from the Irish Church to certain 
wilful PictSy who persisted in preferring their own will in yarioua 
matters of discipline, to that of the Poi>e. He is said to have been 
related to St. Peter himself, and a native of Bethlehem — how he came 
to be made an Irish bishop is not very clear, and we must let the 
question pass. With regard to his altar, " we find," says Mr. Skene, 
'' that the principal Irish missionaries frequently carried about with 
them a slab or block of stone, which they used as an altar for thecele* 
bration of the Eucharist, and which was termed a stone-altar. In 
places where it had been used by any celebrated saint, and remained 
.there, it was the object of much veneration among the people, and is 
the subject of many of the miracles recorded in the acts of the saint. 
St. Patrick's stone altar is frequently mentioned in his acts, and in the 
only strictly analogous case to the Coronation Stone of the Scottish 
kings — ^that of the kings of Munster, who were crowned sitting upon a 
similar stone— the belief was that this Coronation Stone had been the 
stone altar of St. Patrick, on which he had first celebrated the Eucha- 
rist, after the conversion and baptism of the King of Cashel. It is 
therefore, not impossible that the Coronation stone of Scone may have 
had the same origin, and been the stone altar on which Bonif adus 
first celebrated the Eucharist, after he had first brought over the king 
of the Picts and his people from the usages of the Columban church to 
conformity with those of the Boman church." 

But while certain learned Irish antiquarians come to a stand on the 
hill of Tara, and others get lost in the wilds of Pictavia, the generality 
of them agree that otur old stone was the original Coronation Stone of 
Ireland. That it wab brought over to Scotland about the end of the 
fifth century, when the three sons of Ere, went thither with their fol- 
lowers to found the little kingdom, which in honour of their native 
country they called Dalriada. Some say that Fergus Mac Ere placed it 
in Dunstaffnage, the capital of the new realm ; others maintain that 
he carried it to lona, perhaps with a sort of presentiment of the future 
sacredness of that island. With reference to lona, legends are not 
wanting in which our old stone figures in the life of St. Columba him* 
self. 

The authentic history of the Coronation Stone only commences at 
Scone, whither it was carried by Kenneth M'AIpin, when he made 
that beautiful city the capital of his new kingdom. Upon it, as in 
Dalriada, eveiy monarch was crowned. As, however, the successors of 
Kenneth gathered into their hands the reins of the four old kingdoms, 
after a while the men crowned upon it were no longer the kinglets of 
a province, but the sovereign lords of all Scotland. It remained at 
Scone imtil 1291, when Edward I. of England, whose cruelty and in- 

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AnOldSUme. 2t 

jnstioe liis admirers have yainlj tried to doak under his domestio 
▼irtaes and crusading fame, tore it from its resting-place jand amid 
the tears and execration of the Scottish nation, carried it to London. 

That Kenneth Mac Alpin regarded his Coronation Stone as the 
4iuthentic lia Fail, is eyidenoed by the fact that he caused these two 
Latin verses to be inscribed on it : — 

"Ni fallat fatum, Scoti quocumque locatum 
Inyenient lapidem, regnare tenentur ibidem.** 

No trace of them now remains, though on the lower side of the stone 
4t grove still exists, which Dean Stanley thought might have contained 
them. 

And, doubtless^ even in these days, many a Scotchman may be 
found who still believes the Coronation Stone of Scone to be con- 
nected in some mysterious way with the fate and fortune of his native 
land. If to the Englishman the Coronation Stone be a lion, to him it 
is something nearer and dearer far. One of hie own penates, in fact, 
ravished from his home and heart by a fortunate spoiler, centuries 
-ago, but none the less his own peculiar property, representing to him 
3M that was grand and independent in his native history ere it stood 
incorporated with that of the southern kingdom. And it is, to say the 
least of it, very wonderful how the old prophecy was fulfilled, when 
James, the direct heir of M'Alpine the Scot, was crowned on that 
veiy stone in 1603. 

Fordun, the old chronicler, has left us an account of the coronation 
of the boy-king, Alexander HI., the last legitimate sovereign crowned 
upon the Stone of Destiny before its removal. We say legitimate, 
-since the unfortimate Scots were compelled to witness that of the 
pitiful sub -king, John Baliol, whom Edward I. forced upon them. 
"Fordun's description is so graphic," remarks Mr. Skene, '* that we 
•can almost picture the scene. A Scottish July day, the cross in the 
cimeterium ; before it the fatal stone, covered with gold-embroidered 
cloths; at his side the two bishops and the Abbot of Scone; before him 
the great barons of Scotland, kneeling before the ancient symbol of 
Scottish sovereignty ; the aged Highland sennachy pressing forward 
to utter his barbarous Celtic gutturals; in the background the Mount 
of Belief covered with a crowd of people gazing on the solemn scene, 
and in the distance the blue range of the Grampians broken only by 
the pass through which the Tay emerges to pass before them on the 
west." If any of the actors of this scene were still surviving when, 
forty-three years afterwards, Baliol, after his coronation, knelt in sub- 
jection at the feet of the English king, with what bitter feelings they 
must have recalled it! 

Edward I., having brought his treasure home in safety, caused it 
to be encased in the wooden chair with which we are all familiar, after 

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22 An Old Stone. 

which he placed it in the chapel of St. Edward the Conf eesor, in West* 
minster Abbey. ''It would seem," remarks the late Dean, "as if 
Edward's chief intention had been to present it as a trophy of hia 
oonqueet to the Confessor's shrine. On it the priest was to sit while 
celebrating Mass at the altar of St. Edward " — ^meaning, we presume, 
that it was to serve as a sedile during High Mass — '' the chair doubt- 
less standing where it now stands, but facing, as it naturally would, 
westward, was then visible down the whole church, like the metro- 
political See at Canterbuiy, in its original position. When the Abbot 
sat there on high festivals, it was for him a seat grander than any 
episcopal throne. The abbey thus acquired the one feature needed ta 
make it equal to a cathedral— a sacred chair or cathedra." How far 
such an offering was acceptable to the soul of England's great law- 
maker we shall never know in this world. 

Only once since Edward Plantagenet placed it there has the chair 
ever been moved out of the abbey. The occasion was a remarkablo 
one, for it was carried into Westminster Hall, in order that in it 
Oliver Cromwell might be installed Lord Protector of the kingdom. 
Did the old stone beneath remain silent ? or was it that the thunder of 
its groans was unheard amid the clamorous rejoicings of the Bound- 
heads ? The fact of its being used on this occasion proves, perhaps^ 
more than any other single event since its capture, the importance 
attached to it by the rulers and people of England. So at least says 
Dean Stanley, and we quite agree with him. 

We must bid adieu to our old stone.' The afternoon service is about 
to commence, and all loiterers in the aisles and chapels and around. 
" the poets' comer" are warned that they must either attend it, or 
depart. So we turn away, wearily asking ourselves in ourj dis- 
satisfaction, what Catholics ask every day, will things be always as. 
they are now ? For beautiful as the abbey is, glorious as are the 
associations that cling around its eveiy stone, all there is cheerless,, 
cold, dead. Will it be always so ? May not, perhaps, our children 
see a day when the Sanctw bell shall again re-echo through those 
noble arches, and the Angelus peal from those grand old towers ; and 
when all that now is dimmed and dreary shall be revivified by the rays 
of a Glorious Presence that shall flood it from east to west ? Patience \ 
Time, the great revealer, alone can show. 

[The view referred to at page 19 is supported in a learned article contribated by. 
Canon 0*Boarke, P.P. of Maynooth, to the September Number (1880) of the Irish 
EccUwutieal Record^ page 441 of Volume I. of the New Series.— Ed. /. Jf.] 



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( 23 ) 



MARY STUART'S LAST PRAYER. 

IN Ids newest tragedy, " Mary Stuart," Mr. Algernon Swinburne 
begins the Fifth Act, by inlroducing the hapless queen singing^ 
the following little hymn in her chamber in Fotheringay Castle : — 

"OLord, my Gk)d, 

I have truited in Thee ; 
O JetUy mj dearest one, 

Now let me free. 
In priBon*! oppretsion, 
In sorrow*! obeession, 

I weary for Thee. 
With sighin^^ and crying 
Bowed down in dying, 
I adore Thee, I implore Thee, set me free/* 

To understand one of the poet's substantives, some will recur ta 
the distinction between being '* posseaud hj the devil" and that mor& 
external influence which is called ** obsession." Mr. Swinburne takes 
for granted that his readers will know that he is merely translating 
some Latin rhymes written by Mary, in her prayer-book a few houi*s> 
before her execution, 8th of February, 1587. *' It is not improbable,'* 
says Mr. Denis Florence MacCarthy, ** that she herself was the author 
of this exquisite lyrical prayer.'' 

** O Domine Deus, 

Speravi in te, 
O care mi JTesu, 

Nunc libera me ! 
In dura catena 
In misera poena 

Desidero te ; 
Languendo, gemendo, 
Bt genuflectendo, 
Adoro, imploro, 

O libera me !" 

In the Menmg^r of the Sacred Heart for July, 1870, a version waa 
given without any name. In pitting it against the version now pub- 
lished by Mr. Swinburne ten years later, we venture to assign it to the 
Irish poet whom we have just quoted. Both the translators use the 
archaic form of the Holy Name which in Greek and Latin drops the 
final $ in the vocative : — 

" Lord Gt>d, all my hope is 
In Thee, only Thee! 
O Jesu, my SaTiour, 
Now liberate me! 

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:24 The Menkes Prophecy. 

In chains that hare bound roe, 
In pains that surround me, 

Still longing for Thee : 
Here kneeling, appealing, 
My misery feeling, 
Adoriog, imploring. 

Oh, liberate me!" 

" To set free" is better than " to liberate ;*' yet if the Editor of 
the Weekly Freeman had made the poor queen's tiny lyric the ** bone of 
<x)ntention " among his poets and if he had made me his assessor in 
the perilous task of adjudication, I should allot the prize to Mr. 
MacCarthy, leaving the author of '' Atalanta in Calydon " out in the 
<x)ld. 

M. R. 



THE MONK'S PEOPHECT. 



o 



CHAPTER I. 

AX INDIAN TELEORAK. 

Nthe second of June, at Ely-place, the wife of Captain Ormshy of a 
daughter. 

" Does it not sound pretty, nurse?" said the mother, with a low 
laugh. '' Look, baby, we are going to send that to papa." 

*' He will be proud to got it, ma'am. "Will I tie it up for you ?" 
said the nurse, as she stood by the bed of a fair woman, about thirty 
years old, who held in her arms her first living baby, aged two days. 

**Baby will send it to papa." The mother put the folded paper 
into the pink, wrinkled, little hand. '* Papa's little treasure ! ah, you 
small mite, you do not know how much love is in store for you. Give 
me the pen, nurse." With a trembling hand she directed the paper to 
a station in the Bombay Presidency, and then lay back again. '' The 
doctor Bays she is very strong, nurse," she continued ; '' I can hardly 
believe she will be left to me." 

** There is no fear of her, ma'am, please Ood ; I never saw a finer 
child, Gbd bless her. Wait until you see her in a week's time what a 
^e she will be." 

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The Menkes Prophecy. 25 

'' Ab, nnise, it nsed to be bo dreadful every other time : all born 
dead ; five mute little things. I used to weep my heart away about 
tiiem. Then when this little blossom was coming he said he would. 
bring me home. It was miserable having him go back without me ;. 
fitill I felt so difPerent in the bracing air here, that I tried to be con- 
tent ; and how happy I am now, thank God, and how happy he was 
to get the telegram." 

''No doubt of that, ma'am. Quick enough he sent one back.'* 

'' And I shall get a letter soon ; perhaps I would be able to write 
to him to-morrow. We must have her baptised quickly, nurse. I. 
won't be entirely comfortable until then." 

" What name will you call her, ma'am ?'' 

*'I*11 call her Sydney Maiy," said the mother. *'His name is 
Herbert Sydney; 'tis a family name." 

" And a very pretty one," said the nurse. 

The next day baby Sydney was presented at the baptismal font, 
And the nurse brought back minute descriptions of the manner in 
which she conducted herself : how she opened her eyes ; and how tho 
pzieet remarked the power of her lungs — a fact she had made fully 
evident by vigorous and prolonged screaming when the sacred waters 
were poured on her head. She appeared warm and healthy when sho 
was onwoimd out of an old Indian shawl, and nestled to her mother's 
breast with a little note of content, while the mother bent over her 
with unspeakable love, watching the flitting likeness to various 
members of her family that passed shadow-like over her face, those 
evanescent traits that stamp the undeveloped creature as belonging to a 
certain race. " I think she has a look of you, aunty, when she smiles," 
the mother wrote to her only relation, Mrs. MacMahon of Castleishen. 
ll&s. MacKahon was not her aunt, but her cousin, and one that 
had been a mother to her in her youth ; for the wife of Captaia 
Ormsby was an orphan, and had no near kindred. She had been. 
educated in a convent, where she remained until she was nineteen 
years old, simply because she had no home in the outside world. The 
nuns made theirs so happy a one for her, that possibly in some time 
fihe might have decided on remaining with them always, and become a 
poetulant, but Mrs. MacMahon wrote to her, on her return from Paris, 
where she and her fanuly had been residing for some years, asking 
ber to come to Castleishen for a few months. The nuns advised her 
to accept the invitation, and see a little of that world she was thinking 
of renouncing ; it was wiser to test her vocation, they said, and if sh& 
xetumed Hke ih!^ wandering dove, they were ready to receive her with 
open anns. 

So it was decided : Helen Lindsay went to Castleishen. She waa 
Tery lovely, very gentle, and in a short time became of such indispen- 
aable necessity in the household, that the wonder was it did so long 

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-i6 The Monks Prophecy. 

without her. She was beloved by the children, two boys and two girls. 
There were barracks in the village of lisduff, usually occupied by a 
company of soldiers, their captain, and a couple of subalterns. lieu- 
tenant Ormsby thought wooing a wife in the green lanes of the country 
the best and most agreeable way of utilising his time. The course of 
true love, in this instance, ran smooth : there was nothing to prevent 
their union. Helen had a few hundred pounds which enabled him to 
purchase his step, and provided them with an Indian outfit when they 
were ordered abroad. They were both very popular, and all things 
went well with them ; but they, too, had tixeir hidden griefs. One 
after another their babies were born dead. She made dainty little 
robes, lingering with maternal love and longing over each article in 
the tiny wardrobe, only to weep afterwards with unutterable sorrow 
over the dead joy that required but a little winding-sheet, and was 
laid away in the brown earth beneath some tropical flower. At length 
the regimental doctor said the strain was too great on the childless 
mother, and that her strength might not bear another disappointment. 
He ordered her back to her native air, and four months after she 
parted from her husband who had to return to his regiment, Mrs. 
Ormsby gave birth to the little lady whose acquaintance we have made. 

" I must go out as soon as possible, nurse," said Mrs. Ormsby. 
'' I may be able to travel in October; there is a part of the regiment 
going out then. Sergeant Dillon's wife would mind baby ; — she is a 
nice little woman, and has no children of her own. The sergeant was 
to see me just before I got ilL" 

'< There wUl be nothing to prevent you, ma*am, please Gk)d. Miss 
Baby wUl let you do as you like. Look how she curls her little toes." 

It was evening; the fire was lighted, and baby lay on the nurse's 
lap, enjoying the heat, stretching out her small feet, curling and un- 
curling her tiny toes ; opening and shutting her big blue eyes, that 
stared at something beyond mortal view and smiling at the angels. 
They had just come in from a drive, and the lovely colour of renewed 
liealth was on the mother's cheeks as she took the baby in her arms. 

"Watch the postman, nurse," she said; "the mail is in. I'll 
surely get a letter. Ah, baby, when will you be getting a love-letter? 
Papa will write to us to-night, and we shall soon go to him; — shan't 
we, babyP' 

The postman's rat-tat echoed through the house, and in a moment 
the servant entered with a few letters. She knew Captain Onnsby's 
handwriting, and had placed his uppermost. The mother tore it open, 
and her eyes filled with happy tears as she read the warm words of affec- 
tion with which he greeted the birth of his little daughter, and his loving 
eagerness to have them out with him ; but warning her at the same 
time to run no risk, and to remain at home imtil she and baby were 
quite equal for foreign campaigns. 

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The Monks Prophecy. 2 7 

*^ And we shall be strong enough for an3rthmg in October, shan't 
we, nnrse? Here is an official document. I wonder what is it about." 
She opened it, and as she read it she became ghastlj pale. She read 
it aii:ain, and then perused the enclosure. *'0 God/' she cried 

^*OGodr 

" My dear lady, what is it ?'* said the frightened nurse, catching 
. the baby which was falling out of the mother's arms. 

•* He is dead, dead— my husband I"— and she fell back insensible. 
It was too true ; he was lying at that moment in the grave where 
their last baby was buried. The tropical sun heated the white stone 
above him, but would never again meet the living eyes of Captain 
Ormsby. Strangers would read the inscription on the headstone, and 
pass thoughtlessly on, unconscious of the desolation, the wreck of 
human happiness, connected with those recording words. 

Pale and cold Mrs. Ormsby lay in her bed ; she turned her face to 
the wall and remained so still and passive that the nurse tried to waken 
lier into more demonstrative grief. She gave her the baby. 

" Poor little orphan," said Uie mother, quietly; **poor unfortunate! 
what wiU become of her? It would be well for her to die, nuxse," 
•she moaned; **it would be better for her to follow him.'* 
" She wiU live to comfort you, dear lady." 

** Thero is no more comfort for me ; no more comfort in this world. 
I was too happy with my darling. It could not last." 

The priest came to her when he heard from the nurse of her be- 
reavement, and at last the apathy of despair gave way before his 
^words of holy consolation. Was she to shrink from carrying the cross 
which her dear Lord carried bef oro her, and died on for her sake ? 
Did she want to leave Him all the suffering, and keep joy for her 
t>wn portion ? Would she go to Thabor willingly, and leave Hi'm alone 
on Calvary? He took her husband from her ; but whither did He 
lake him ? was it not to Himself ? and was she in the selfishness of 
earthly love to mourn as one without hope, because God saw fit to 
•consummate his happiness and lessen hers. For the short time she 
had to live here she should be patient. 

The tears rolled slowly down the widow's cheeks. ** The will of 
God be done," she said. ''Pray for me. Father, that I may always 
«ay it." 

Day succeeded day in the blank monotony of grief. What she had 
to do she did mechanically. Letters came from his brother officers 
and their wives, expressing deepest rogret and truest friendship. She 
smiled sadly as she read them ; what was the use of itnow ? She was 
-severed for ever from them ; and the best friendship dies out without 
association. She realised all the minor losses her one great loss in- 
cluded. No more for her was the pleasant barrack-life» the light- 
hearted chat in the verandahs, when tiie crimson sun was setting, the 

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a8 The MonKs Prophecy. 

bugle call to mark their hours, and the boom of the cannon that 
heralded a day full of happy duties and pleasures. 

What was she to do ? That was the thought that worked upper- 
most in her mind. How would she manage to live ? She would have- 
the pension of a captain's widow ; Sydney would have ten pounds a 
year, imtil she was twenty-one ; and that was all. She had been 
accustomed to luxury all her life— attendants, rich dresses, choice food. 
She had exchanged the exquisite refinement of the convent in which 
she was educated, for the luxurious home of a countiy magnate, and 
left Gastleishen for the love of Herbert Ormsby, and a beautiful wild 
free life in Asia. She. was paying for her servant and lodgings iui 
Dublin more than she had now to live on. What was she to do ? 



CHAPTEE n. 

TUE MACMAH0N8 OF CASTLEISHXN. 

*^At Indula, a station in the Himalaya^ of jungle fever, Serhert Sydney 
Ormahy, Captain in the th regiment ; deeply regretted,*^ 

"Good heavens, William|! Helen Lindsay's husband is dead !" said 
Mrs. Mao Mahon, as she sat at the breakfast-table at Gastleishen. 

** Nonsense, my dear. Had you not a letter from her a few day» 
ago?" 

** Yes, but it must be true. Oh, isn't it awful ?— and her baby but 
a few days old ; — and she was so happy. The poor thing, how will she 
bear it? 

''I can't believe it at all," said Mr. Mac Mahon, taking up the 
paper. ** It seems impossible there should be such a break-up." 

** She^would be the more likely to lose him because they were so- 
happy," said a girl with a beautifiil colour and fair hair. '' Disagree- 
able people never die. How I used to envy her such a gay life t 
Won't she be badly off now?" 

•* You ought to ask her down for a few months, mother," said 
another girl. " Nellie would mind the baby." 

•* Eight you are, Minnie," said her father; — " the very thing. Ask 
her down, the poor thing ; she ought not to be alone in such trouble."' 

" Oh, babies are so cross," said the far girl; "and if Helen bo 
crying, as I suppose she will, the place will be more melancholy than 
ever." 

"Don't be selfish, Carrie, my dear," said her mother; "w^ 
should all try to lighten her sorrow ; she must be desolate in Dublin. 
Poor thing ! even in her last letter she said I should let one of you up 
to her very soon. I'll write to her to-.day." 

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The Monks Prophecy. 29 

There had been peroeplible changes in the MacM'ahon family einoe 
Helen Lindsay had left them. Mr. MaoMahon was greatly crippled 
by that plague of moist places — ^rheumatism. Mrs. MaoMahon, who 
was oonsiderably his junior, had not lost her comely appearance : there 
were some silver threads in her smooth, brown hair, but the face was 
soft and fair. The eldest g^, Winifred, was slight and tall, with 
gentle dark eyes and nut-brown hair; she was about twenty-two years 
old. The second girl had a lovely, fair face, in which the roses went 
and came. There was a shade of discontent about the red mouth, and 
oocasionally the whole expression was unpleasant. In so young and 
pretty a face one might call the expression a petulant, or wilful one; 
an observer would say she was pettish or pouting ; but in an elderly 
and plainer one more likely the judgment would be, that she had a 
temper not altogether agreeable. A handsome young person can 
be, and do, many things unpardonable in advanced and unlovely 
womanhood. Youth covers a multitude of sins. 

The room in which the MacMahons sat bore unmistakable signs 
that money was a consideration. The costly carpet was worn nearly 
threadbare, showing bright colours where the chairs and tables saved 
it; everything was old, but in good preservation ; the walls were hung 
witli family portraits ; a large bow-window looked out over a silver 
bay glittering in the sunlight. Ghreat oaks, mingled with copper 
beedies and lime-trees, stood in the lawn ; and here and there bare 
stomps bore significant witness to the fact that the axe had been in 
requisition. 

There was a leak in the family in the person of the eldest son, who 
had a happy fatality for spending money. He was in a dragoon regi- 
ment ; his father allowed him a few hundreds a year, and he contrived 
to live at the rate of a few thousands. For some time it was hoped 
that hia handsome face and gallant bearing would subjugate the heart 
of some tender English heiress, whose fortune would dear away the 
aocomnlating mortgages and restore Oastleishen to its olden gloiy ; but 
the young heir was more inclined to follow the counsels of his heart 
than his head ; he married a portionless girl, to whom sealskin jackets, 
jewels, and laces were items rendered necessary by custom. 

Mr. MacMahon was bitterly disappointed by his son's early and 
imprudent marriage. In answer to his request for an increased 
allowance, he wrote him a plain statement of their circumstances, 
which the young man might have easily known if he only took the 
trouble of thinking. He was somewhat startled when he saw in plain 
figoree the amount of his father's rent-roll and the numerous claims 
upon it — ^a good many of them caused by his own extravaganca There 
was an insurance of three thousand pounds for the younger children, 
and as Mr. MacMahon had effected it late in life, the policy was a 
heavy one. It is not a good time to put economic laws in force when 

▼OIM H.. No. 103. Digitized by GofeglC 



30 The ManKs Prophecy. 

young girLs are grown up. There is something suspicious in their 
necessity, and to worldly men, men of substance and wisdom, embar* 
rassments sound slightly disreputable. Wealth has an influence eyen 
on the least mercenary of mortals. A young man may not have the 
least inclination to marry the young lady with ten thousand pounds ; 
yet haying her as a partner is quite stimulating, and unconsciously 
he is on his best behayiour. He is rarely dut/raiit in his oonyersationi 
he is quick to offer attentions, and is usually more deferential, and 
desirous to please, than when he is dancing with a girl whose father 
is on the yerge of bankruptcy. A young man may fall in loye with a 
girl, and marry her without a penny, when he meets her in a refined, 
comfortable house, where there is no lack of means ; yet he might not 
do so if her surroundings were different; if she were not placed in the 
pleasant atmosphere of easy circumstances; if the ugly signs of poyerty 
had left their mark on clothes and furniture ; if the dinner were ba^ 
the wine cheap, and the general effect were shabbiness. There is a 
certain antagonism between people who haye no money troubles and 
people who haye, and a mutual inclination to make little of each 
other. 

Howeyer, at Castleishen there was quite sufBcient means for liying 
eomf ortably, and for making a respectable appearance at social gather^ 
ings. Winifred, when she returned from school, had been yery gay, and 
fond of amusement, the first in eyeiy pleasant plan for party or picnic 
Xisduff continued to be a military station for some years after she 
came home, and the officers, naturally enough, took adyantage of the 
permission accorded them, and spent many agreeable hours at Castle- 
ishen. The front entrance opened on the road just near the barracks, 
and it was quite refreshing to turn in from the dusty highway and 
wander under the great trees by the ayenue on the sunny summer 
days, or loimge in the drawingroom for fiye o'clock tea*. Captain 
Wliite seemed to enjoy it all yeiy thoroughly, lingering by Winifred's 
side, singing duets at the piano, reading poetry under the spreading 
oak, sketching, walking, riding. Caroline had come home lately, and 
enjoyed it also, until the higher powers put an end to such summer 
idyls. The station was broken up in Lisduff, the soldiers were 
remoyed, and the barracks were deserted. Cany bemoaned her 
bereayement bitterly and openly. Winifred gaye expression to no 
particular regret, but she grew strangely quiet. 

" Perhaps it is better they left before you grew older. Carry," she 
said, in reply to a piteous lament of her sister's. 

"Lest I should fall in loye with one of them?" said Carry. ''I 
• suppose I'm as susceptible now as oyer I'll be ; and I'm not yery soft. 
But I hate this horrible dulness. Whateyer you say, I don't belieye 
but you miss Captain White. Why, he used to be always here before 
he went ; don't pretend that you did not miss him." 

* Digitized by VjOOQ IC 



The Monk's Prophecy. 3 1 

"I sappose I did," answered Winifred, quieUj; " but it Beems he 
did not miss us." 

"Thatistme; he never wrote/' said Oarry, yawning. "But 'tis 
well for you you don't oare who comes or goes. You have no heart, 
and are always content 'Tisn't the people I care about, either. I 
shouldn't mind who went, suppose someone as nice came." 

Soon after Winifred became delicate, and had to be taken away 
for change of air — a happy circumstance oyer which Oarry rejoiced. 
They returned again after a few months, and fell into the old quiet 
routine. The next year Oaptain Ormsby died, — and our story begins. 

Mrs. MacMahon's kind letter asking her to the home of her happy 
girlhood was balm to the widow's bruised heart, and she gladly accepted 
the invitation. It would give her time to think, for as yet she had not 
recoyered from the crushing blow that had fallen on her, and thoughts 
of the uncertain future only waked more yiyidly recollections of all 
she had lost It would be blessed to rest for a few months, without 
haying to calculate about money matters. Every day she spent in her 
expensive lodgings was a positive terror to her, now that her income 
had become so limited. 

One warm July evening she and her baby got out of the train at 
KiUford, the railway station nearest to Oastleishen, and getting into 
the trap waiting for her, drove along the old familiar road that wound 
for a few miles along the brink of the silver Shannon. She looked 
curiously at all the landmarks she so well remembered: the wide, deep 
waters, so quiet and empty, save for an occasional yacht floating by 
with sunlit sails ; the salmon weir; the wooded hills of limerick ; tho 
gray old ruins ; the noisy water-courses, bringing their tribute to swell 
the current of the river flowing onward to the sea. How much happi- 
ness had been crowded into the seven years in which she had been 
away ; how different a person she seemed to be now, returning a widow 
to the place she had left a bride, her husband who had remained her 
lover, her means, her bright cheerful life, all passed away like a dream, 
and nothing left her but a wee blue- eyed baby ! She pressed it closer 
to her heart, and thanked God for her one ewe lamb. Yes, Father 
Charles was right ; she should be patient. Perhaps such happiness as 
hers had been was not best fitted for her soul. Had she not thought 
more of earth than heaven ? — had she been working out her salvation 
with fear and trembling? — was not eternity an abstraction that lay 
away in remote ages, and death but a vague possibility? Were not 
all her affections, her desires, her earnest thoughts given to her 
husband and the things of this world ? Had not life become the end, 
and not the means, to the end ? God gave her great happiness for 
thirty years. After all, were there many equally fortunate ? Some 
lives seemed full of care, from the cradle to the grave. Did she not 
know women herself whose married career was one long martyrdom 



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3 2 The Monies Prophecy. 

without a hope of peaoe at tiiis side of the grave ? Was she to mur- 
mur because the cup of bliss was not held for ever to her lips ? No ; 
she would be patient, and take the bitter with the sweet. She would 
oany her cross after her Master ; she would devote the remainder of 
her days to Herbert's little girl, and put her trust in Gk)d. 

The tears gathered slowly in her eyes when she came to the 
barrack ; she was glad she would hear no more the bugle-call that 
thrilled her heart in the days of her young love. The gates were open; 
she drove up the broad avenue. The years had given fuller foliage to 
its overhanging trees, and the drooping ash, beneath whose shade 
Herbert had once constructed a rustic seat, had stretched upwards to 
the heavens, and swept the velvet sward with its tender green boughs. 

Her friends waited for her on the steps, and gave her a cordial 
greeting. She found the little girls she had left, grown into 
lovely womanhood, and Eustace, bom while she was abroad, a bright 
little fellow, most anxious to see the baby. Mrs. MacMahon took her 
at once to her own room and told Winifred to call Nellie, and to bring 
up some redbeshment '' No tears, Helen, my darling," said she ; 
'* we won't talk of the past yet. I am so glad to have you here with 
me ; I love to have a baby in the house ; and the country will be so 
good for her. Tou see I have put you in the room next the nursery; I 
knew you would like it best ; Eustace sleeps in a little bed in my own 
room ; so Nellie and baby wiQ have undisputed possession of theb 
domain." 

Nellie Clancy, having a very kind heart, and a large supply of the 
maternal instinct, was only too glad to get baby Sydney into her charge. 
She was slightly disabled by an accident, which occurred while she 
was working at a flax-mill : her arm had caught in the machinery, and 
been so badly broken that fears were entertained of the necessity of 
amputation. However, it was somehow pierced together, and after 
spending many months in the hospital, she was discharged quite 
cured. The arm was a lit^ shorter and weaker than the other one, 
but fortunately it was the left one ; so she managed to make it very 
useful. She said herself the only thing it incapacitated her from doing 
was milking a second cow, and as she did a great many other works, 
and did them well, she succeeded in earning her livelihood. She was 
a tall, good-looking woman, about forty years old, she had never 
married, as she would be useless as a poor farmer's wife. One year, 
after various disappointments in obtaining employment, she applied to 
Mrs. MacMahon who engaged her to mind fowl. Her worth was soon 
discovered : she was a good needlewoman, she could wash and make 
up muslins and laces skilfully, she was willing and obliging, and 
henceforth became a most useful member of the Castleishen establish- 
ment. 

Mrs. Ormsby fell quietly into the ways of the house ; tf she wq^ 

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The Monk's Prophecy. 33 

no one saw her tears ; she bore her losses gently and unrepininglj, and 
the baby grew fat and rosy in the bradng country air. Captain 
Onnsby s effects had been sold, and the money sent home. It was not 
Tery much — an ofiEloer's wardrobe and camp furniture are not pro- 
dnctiye of money — but to poor people even a little is a c< msideration. 

The present absence of care could not banish thoughts of the future 
from the widow's mind. Sixty pounds a year was a meagre sum to 
pay for lodgings, food, and clothes ; she had no sayings, no yaluables. 
The future seemed gloomy, indeed. 



OHAPTER in. . 

**THB HOT." 

AxoKO the most frequent visitors at Castleishen was Father Moran, the 
parish priest He had been educated for the priesthood in France, 
and in his early days spoke French like a native. He took a great 
interest in the MaoMahons ; nothing of importance was done in the 
&mily without consulting him, and he was very fond of putting the 
young people through their French exercises. He it was who had 
married Hden Lindsay ; she had been a great favourite of his in her 
girlhood, and it gave him sincere and earnest trouble to see her again 
thrown upon the world, poor and widowed. He thought so much, and 
spoke so much about it, that at length his ideas began to take tangible 
shape. 

" She never could live in Dublin," he said, emphatically ; *' she 
would starve there ; wouldn't lodgings run away with half of what she 
has to live on ? Better for her get some place down here, where we 
eould all help her. ^hy, all the old women in the parish bring me 
more chickens and eggs than I can use, and with vegetables from your 
garden, and so on, she would be somehow comfortable." 

" I quite agree with you," said Mr. MacMahon ; '^ but where 
would she get lodgings ? They are wretched in Lisduff." 

'* Pooh, my dear sir, poor people must have poor weddings ; better 
to have a small place, and be able to pay for it ; a narrow house is 
better than an empty stomach. I have no fancy for the village myself, 
if she eould do better." 

'' I wonder could the little cottage Boyle left be made habitable ?' 
said Mrs. MacMahon, thoughtfully. 

" Is it the house by the waterfall ?" asked the priest. 

" Yes ; it is out of repair I know, but it was very pretty. 

" The very thing, my dear lady," said the priest, decisively, " the 
very thing. I wonder I didn't tldnk of it myself. Why, that can be 
made fit for a queen ; a couple of pounds will put it in order. A 
bit of paint and paper, — and she will be near us all." 

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34 The Monk's Prophecy. 

" Quite right/' said Mr. MaoMahon ; " there is a nice little garden 
at the back ; and she could have the grass of a little Kerry that would 
give her milk." 

*' It would be a great change for her/' said Mrs. MacMahon ; '' but 
she is so good and gentle she puts up with anything, and I feel sure 
she would be happier there than anywhere else at present." 

<< My dear lady, there is nowhere else would suit her as well," said 
Father Moran, " she wiQ be twice as happy as if she jstayed on eyen 
here. Independence is very sweet." 

" She has spoken already of leaving/' said Mrs. MacMahon, '* but 
I insisted on her remaining for another month." 

" Ah, poor thing," said the priest; '' she, that never had thopspirit 
of pride in her, is become proud now because she is poor. A rich 
person thinks she is doing you a favour by paying you a few months' 
visit ; a poor one wiQ fear she is a burden, Ihough 'tis likely you wiUl 
lose more by the first than the last if you tot up your accounts." 

" If we could arrange this plan, it would be a great relief to my 
mind," said Mrs. MacMahon. " It was a real trouble to me to think 
of her going away, not knowing how she would manage." 

" We will arrange it, see if we don't," replied the priest ; " you 
and I will have that house in apple-pie order before one fortnight, or 
my name is not Moran." 

"No doubt," said Mr. MacMahon, smiling; ''when you and she 
work in concert it would be hard to stop you. And, indeed, I should 
be very pleased if the poor thing were settled comfortably." 

** Comfortable she will be," answered the priest. " You'll have the 
happiness of seeing that you brightened the lives of the widow and 
orphan. And that's a sweet little spot ; that cracked photographer 
took a picture of it last summer. A very sweet little spot." 

" Let you speak of it to her. Father Moran," said Mrs. MacMahon; 
"you are the best to explain everything." 

After some time, Father Moran joined Mrs. Ormsby, who sat under 
a spreading oak, nursing the baby. She was looking out towards the 
quiet waters, with a vague, hopeless expression on her pale face. 
"Won't you make room for me, Helen," he said, "till we have a 
comfortable chat, as we used to have in the old times. In those days 
it used to be arguments," he continued, taking a place on the seat 
beside her — " arguments about novels, and dancing, and ball-going, 
and so forth." 

"I was a foolish girl then. Father," she said, with a sad smile; 
" you had great patience with me." 

" Anyone that loves gardening, my dear, is satisfied to wait until 
the bud breaks into blossom," answered the priest; " he is patient as 
long as it looks healthy, and he won't force it. Tou were not a very 
disobedient child in those days ; you always were guided by my advice ; 
and Tm not done advising you yet, remember." ^ ^.^^^^ ^^ GoOgle 



The Menkes Prophecy. 35 

" And I require it as much as ever. Father," she said ; '' I am 
a helpless kind of woman ; there isn't a bit of good in me." 

" Tut, nonsense, my dear. What do you want to do but mind your 
child ? is not that good work for you ? — and you are comfortable here, 
and among your best friends." 

" I know all that," she replied ; " but, dear Father, I can't stay 
here much longer. I'm ashamed of being here so long. George and 
his wife are coming, and though I know they are as sorry as I am. 
'tis not right I should remain." 

** Oh, as for that, child, there's room for as many more in Castle- 
iaheen ; still I know a person, who has had her own house for so 
many years, naturally wishes to have a comer for herself again. 'Tie 
quite right, and we have just been talking about it." 

"Talking about me?" 

** Yes; the mistress was saying that she had to insist on your re- 
maining another month. I said I wished you could get a place near 
us, and it suddenly occured to her that if Boyle's cottage, near 
the waterfall, were done up, you might be content in it, and stay in 
the middle of us all. Mr. MacMahon said you might have the grass 
of a little Kerry cow. We'll paper and paint up the little house, and 
help you in every way, and you'll get along as nicely as possible, and 
give us our tea of an evening," and the priest laughed jovially. 

The widow was silent a moment, and then burst out crying. " Oh, 
Father," she said, '' I did not know on earth what to do with myself 
and my child, and I am not a bit of good to live." 

" Nonsense, woman, you'll have lots to do, housekeeping. Tou'll 
have the nicest little house in the parish, and be as comfortable as 
possible ; so if you take my advice you'll put every other scheme out 
of your head ; 'tis just the thing that suits you at present." 

"Suits me!" she said; "the very idea has taken a load off my 
heart. And you know I can pay for the cottage," she added, quickly. 

" Of course, of course, my dear. A couple of pounds is as much as 
it is worth ; a few pounds more will buy you a little Kerry ; and there 
you are, the head of a house again, making a nest cosy for the little 
one." 

It was a new hope infused into the widow's desolate heart. With 
deep thankfulness she received the key from Mr. MacMahon, and, 
accompanied by the whole family, including Father Moran, went to 
inspect the premises. 

The little house was separated from the road by a garden, sheltered 
by a low hedge of hawthorn-trees. The windows looked out on the 
Shannon, shining in the distance. There was a hill on one side, down 
the side of which a beautiful waterfall dashed musically, then fell into 
a stream, which flowing under a bridge about fifty yards off, went on to 
the great river. The woods of Castleishen lay at the back, and fine 



Digitized by VjOOQ IC 



3 6 The Monks Prophecy, 

horsechestnut trees stood about the entrance. The house was but the 
usual simple cottage — two rooms at the end, a large kitchen, and 
another inner ^room of good size, which had been floored and ceiled ; 
a step-ladder led up to a loft, which was lighted by an end window 
opening on hinges. There was a back door to the kitchen, leading into 
a small yard, containing a cow-house and pig-stye. Mrs. MacMahon 
had sent a couple of workmen in the morning, who were clearing away 
rubbish, and gave a pleasant look of life and labour to the place. 

The improvements were soon planned : a hall was to be boarded 
off the kitchen, the two rooms at one side boarded and papered, and 
the one at the other converted into the sitting-room. '' I must have 
an end window here, to give us a view of the waterfall," said Father 
Moran. '' I couldn't take my tea anywhere else, and as it is an 
aesthetic fancy of mine, I must be permitted to put it in myself. 1*11 
send Micky Joyce and Pat Mere to-morrow ; they owe me dues, I may 
as well take work from them as money, and they'll like it the better 
of the two." 

In a few days '^ The Hut," as they agreed to call it, was in posses- 
sion of the carpenters, who worked steadily under the superintendenoe 
of the priest and the Castleishen folk. In a wonderfully short time 
the whole place was changed. The end window satisfied Father 
Moran's wildest desires. The walls were papered, the wood- work 
painted, the garden in front cleared up, and a tiny pleasure-ground 
arranged. Father Moran and Mr. MacMahon would not listen to 
Mrs. Ormsby's petitions to be allowed to pay for the improvements. 
She got a lease of the cottage for her own and the baby's life at a 
yearly rent of a few pounds — the priest said this would make her feel 
more independent — and on the first of November the widow moved 
into her little home. The sittingroom looked very pretty; she 
bought a few articles of furniture, and the store rooms of Castleishen 
supplied her with many odds and ends, which, covered with pretty 
chintz, looked very well indeed. Father Moran sent a comfortable 
aim-chair for himself, and a little tea-table for the end window. Every- 
one wished to help her. Her larder was quite full with the amount of 
butter and eggs the countrywomen had placed there. One brought 
her a cinnamon turkey, another a goose of the best breed ; there was 
a duck and drake quacking in the yard ; and a fine robust cock made 
his presence evident by many a prolonged crow. A cattle-jobber had 
bought a handsome Kerry cow for her at the most moderate price, and 
a nice little pig was sleeping luxuriously in its tidy siy. 

Tears of joy and gratitude were in Mrs. Ormsby's eyes as she lay 
down to rest that night beneath her own roof. No more thinking of 
the future; no more terrified pondering over ways and means: only 
endless peace and rest, away from the hurrying world, near to the few 
who loved her, and pleasant daily occupations, and tender duties 

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•SV. Agnes. 37 

minding her baby-treasure, who looked at her with the clear blue eyes 
of her father. 

Kellie had come with her, and was perfectly radiant with satis- 
faction. She loved her nurseling as dearly as if Jit were her own, and 
parting with it had been contemplated with the bitterest regret. Now 
all was changed, and not alone was baby still under her sway, but she 
was constituted mistress of a kitchen, where she was to reign supreme. 
She had her dairy, her pig, her fowl, a whole establishment to manage ; 
in fact, she was in the position for which she was just fitted, and as a 
natural consequence was never so happy in all her life. 

Mrs. Ormsby's luggage came from Dublin, and a box containing 
her husband's swords, a few tin cases filled with papers-— old 
letters, his commission, &c. &c Amongst them was a small case, 
battered from much knocking about. A card was pasted on the top 

on which was written : *' Papers given me by Lieutenant '* the 

remaining word was obliterated. She showed it to her friends, who 
advised her to put it by carefully. If it contained anything of import- 
ance it would be claimed by the owner, who knew, of course, whexe 
to look for it. She therefore corded it. Father Moran affixed a 
seal, and she put it on the loft, which she had coDverted into her store- 
room. 



ST. AGNES. 
{2\it January.) 



CHILD in thy years and in guileless air, 
Yet more than woman in thy dauntless heart! 
' Spouse of the Lamb, and lamb in name — thou art 
The saint of saints, to those bright few who wear 
The mystic robe unstain'd. Thou couldst not bear 
In thy young soul — and live — the glowing dart 
Of Love Divine, but longedst for the smart 
Of steel, to waft thee to His palace fair. 

Oh ! hadst thou faltered when the voice of home 
And mortal love had fain allured thee, 
- "Where now had been thy living world-wide fame ? 
One matron more the high-born ranks of Bome 
Had swell'd ; but Heaven's virgin galaxy, 
Agnes, had never known thy winning name. 

C. M. O'H. 

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{ 38 ) 



JOTTINGS IN LANCASHIRE .• 

BT BOSA HULHOLLAin). 



TT may be said that no part of England is bo closely connected with 
-^ Ireland as Lancashire ; that there is no place where so many of our 
conntzymen haye found employment, encouragement, not to say 
fortune and fame. A great dead of the hard work done in its big 
cities is done by Irish hands, and many of our poor people who were 
starving at home have sat down thankfully at a comfortable fireside in 
Lancashire. When one walks the streets of Liverpool, Irish faces and 
Irish voices are all around us, and we are forced to feel a friendly 
warmth towards the English people, who have received us so freely 
amongst them, and given us so liberally to eat of their bread. And 
another reason for indulging a kindly feeling towards Lancashire can- 
not but arise in our minds ; for here the old religion has been more 
boldly fought for, more steadfastly adhered to, and more affectionately 
cherifihed than in any other county of all England. 

For the Oatholic who loves to hear tales of the storms weathered by 
the Ohurch in by-gone days, for the antiquarian or lover of the 
picturesque, who delights in old halls, with quaint gables and rare 
windows, with a resident ghost, a weird legend, and a secret hiding- 
place ; or, again, for the busy mind that has a keen relish for stories 
of commercial enterprise and success : for all these Lancashire has 
fascinations of its own ; as it is most true that the romance of history 
and the romance of trade walk ever arm-in-arm in good fellowship 
along its flat and sandy shores, and over the footpaths of its great 
fields and morasses. 

In ancient days, when knights and squires got grants of so many 
"bovates," or ** carucates," of land for services rendered by greater 
men, and thus founded important families, it is possible that Lanca- 
shire was not looked on as one of the richest counties in the king- 
dom. It hardly ranked, as it does now, first in point of population. 
The nature of the soil is iso inferior, that it never could take more than 
a secondaiy place as an agricultural county, and no one could have 
imagined that it was to become one of the greatest centres of wealth 
and commercial power in the world. It cannot be called a beautiful 
country, though it is fine in parts. Lonsdale, north of the Sands, 

* *'Illttfltrat6d Itinerary of tbe Count j of Lancaster." <* Harland'a Legends, 
Traditions, Sports, &c, of the County of Lancashire.*' " Ljdiate Hall and its Aaaocia- 
tions. By the Rer. T. Ellison Gibson." ^ i 

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Jottings in Lancashire. 39 

reminds one of Westmoreland or Cumberland, with its steep mountains 
hollow glens, narrow lakes, and lonesome wilds. On the eastern border 
there is some fine scenery, and about Blackbume and Rochdale the 
wayfarer is surprised by lovely landscapes ; but the western parts of 
Lancashire are flat and uninteresting ; even the sea haying created no 
beauty of its own, for neither rocks nor clifPs are to be seen. Savage 
moors, wastes unsheltered by a tree, and sterile, monotonous stretches 
of sand seem almost all that has been here provided by Nature for the 
sustenance of man. Above its great beds of rocksalt, above the sand- 
stone formation which shows redly in all directions, vast mosses 
spread far and wide, notably Ohat Moss (over which Stephenson suc- 
cessfully and wonderfully carried the railway from Manchester to 
Liverpool), and tracts of day and marie. The mosses have been to a 
great extent cultivated, and huge timber trees, black as ink, are 
constantly dug up out of the great beds, relics, like our own bog-oak, 
of the great forests that covered these countries in primeval days ; 
and, as if to make up by one surprising gift for barrenness and lack 
of beauty. Nature has stored up under the imgenerous sandstone sur- 
face the illimitable treasures of the coal mines, that mysterious hoard 
of imprisoned sunshine, of condensed and portable light and heat, 
which is the princely inheritance of the county of Lancashire. 

The Duchy of Lancaster was given at the Conquest to Koger do 
Poiton, but was afterwards forfeited to the Crown. Henry III. 
Appointed his youngest son Earl of Lancaster, and later the Duchy, 
with its estates, was vested in Edward lY. as Duke of Lancaster, 
being settled by Act of Parliament on him and his heirs for ever. 
Large additions were made to it by Henry YIIL, out of estates seized 
at the dissolution of monasteries; but succeeding kings, on the contrary, 
deteriorated the property by the granting of leases, &c. The Duchy 
is a county palatine, with royal privileges, and has a court of chancery, 
founded by Edward lY., with an equity jurisdiction within the 
palatinate. 

In the early days, when Boger de Poiton got possession, his first 
care was to make grants of land to other men who became his feuda- 
tories, enabling him to fulfil the conditions of suit and service under 
which he held his own grant from the Conqueror ; and thus sprang 
up the founders of the great old families in the county, the builders of 
those fine old halls, with their walls of timber hard as iron, their 
peaked gables and fantastic escutcheons, and the beautiful old windows, 
with their mullions and lattices, which require no vast sheets of star- 
ing glass*to fill in their apertures of quaint and varied shape. 

At that time there were great woods all over the country, roads were 
few and bad ; it was probably difficult to carry stones from a distance, 
and the builders wisely hewed down the giant oaks, and made them 
the guardians of their hearths. 

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40 Jottings in Lancashire. 

How much more beautiful are these old timbered, or half-timbered, 
Tnansions than the ponderous stone edifices of modem days one need 
only ramble a little through Lancashire to discover. Of these old halls, 
standing for many hundreds of years, some have been deserted by the 
descendants of those who planned and raised them for more convenient, 
perhaps, but less beautiful dwellings, and are now used as farm-houses, 
their painted scutcheons defaced, their quaint inscriptions and carven 
legends almost obliterated, their ornamental devices disfigured and 
destroyed. Perhaps the oldest and most interesting wing of the 
mansion has been pulled down, and stables and out-houses built for 
the farmer out of the materials its ruin has supplied. One cannot 
help wondering that it should be so ; that such interesting relics of a 
by-gone day are not lovingly preserved and even restored by their 
owners; or, if all who had a special claim on them should by chance have 
passed away, then why does the State not step in to take care of them? 

When many of these old halls were enjoying their palmy days, no 
one dreamed of the Manchester or Liverpool of to-day. It is true 
that the people of Lancashire early applied themselves to manufac- 
tures ; probably because of the poorness of the land, which drove 
their industry to seek for other materials to work upon. In 
Elizabeth's reign woollen goods, called '* coatings," or cottons, and 
fustians were produced in the neighbourhood of Manchester; even 
then Lancashire was celebrated for its weavers ; and linen yam was 
imported from Ireland, and sent back woven into cloth. It is thought 
that cotton wool may have been brought into England by the Flemings 
who took refuge there from the tyranny of the Duke of Alva, and 
many of whom settled in and about Manchester. 

The story of the development of the cotton trade is highly interesting. 
For a long time no cotton goods were made without linen warps, and 
great quantities of yam were brought to England from Ireland, 
Scotland, and Northern Qermany, while the cotton weft was generally 
spun in Lancashire by the family and neighbours of the weavers. This 
state of things was found to be satisfactory enough, till about the year 
1760, up to which date nothing but coarse materials, such as fustians 
and dimities had been produced ; but alter this the demand for these 
things began to exceed the supply, and the weaver chafed at finding 
himself so inconveniently dependent on the. spinner, who could not 
furnish him quickly enough with weft for his work. 

At this time weavers or factors were wont to travel about from 
cottage to cottage with pack-horses to collect yam from the spinsters, 
and often the yam was at so high a premium as to rob the weaver of 
the profit of his work. It was just ^en that the terrible system of 
infant labour sprang up — a system which achieved its worst results 
before such a thing as a factory was heard of. So profitable was 
spinning, that every cottage child was obliged to take its part in the 



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Jottings in Lancashire. 41 

general toil The little creatures picked the cotton, wonnd the jam, 
and arranf^ed the card-ends. It frequently happened that the father 
was a weaver and the mother a spinster, and then, indeed, were the 
children's tasks severe. An old Lancashire man, alive in 1842, was 
often heard to dedare that he could never think of the days of his in- 
fancy without a shudder. 

The era of g^reat changes and improvements in manufactures was 
begpin when John Kay of Bury invented the fly-shuttle ; and when, 
later, his son, Bobert Kay, produced his invention of the '' drop-box," 
enabling a weaver to use either of three shuttles, each containing a 
weft of a different colour, a great impulse was given to the weaving 
trade, and the spinsters with their one-thread wheels utterly failed to 
supply the clamour for weft. Inventive brains went to work, and the 
machinists of England pondered the knotty problem of how to facilitate 
the production of yam. In 1738, John Wyatt of Birmingham had 
taken out a patent for an invention for lengthening out the carded 
Tolls of wool and cotton, but it was not of any use in regulating the 
evenness of the " roving" (or thread), merely elongating the thread 
without improving the regularity of the fibres. The arranging of 
spindles and bobbins in a frame, and turning of the same by distinct 
wheels, had already been invented by the Italian '' silk-throwsters," 
and bad been introduced by Sir T. Lombe into his great mill at Derby; 
but the difficulty to be overcome in mechanical cotton-spinning was 
not the twisting of the yam, but was to get a " roving" evenly attenu- 
ated, ready to receive flie twist that converted it into yam. In 1767, 
Thomas Highs, a reed-maker of Leigh, invented an improved machine, 
and got John Kay, a dock-maker, of Glasgow, to construct for him a 
more delicate model of the same. Kay confided the secret of Highs to 
the famous Arkwright, who saw at a glance the importance of the in- 
vention, and immediately set to work to develop and complete it 

A question as to the rival, claims of Highs and Arkwright as bene- 
factors of the cotton-trade has been eagerly disputed. Highs, it is 
aaid, only set on foot a project which could have come to nothing in 
liis hands, as he was in possession of more available means for bringing 
it to perfection than was Arkwright. He had some reputation as a 
machinist, and was a reed-maker, already known to the manufacturers. 
In 1772, he had won two htmdred guineas from the manufacturers of 
Manchester for the invention of a spinning machine ; and had he been 
foUy aware of all that was capable of being developed out of his new 
project, he had every facility for making the most of his knowledge. 
Arkwright, on the contrary, was a barber at Bolton, who, in following 
the lead of his mechanical genius, had neglected his business and 
injured his fortunes. He imdoubtedly gained from Kay the idea of 
spinning by rollers, but it is equally certain that the conception of the 
entire prooesa of giving effect to that principle is soldy his own. 

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42 Jottings in Lancashire. 

Perseyering against every obstacle, lie set up his first spinning-machine 
in the parlonr of the Free Grammar School at Preston. Ultimately 
he left Lancashire, where he had suffered much persecution, and took 
his spinning to Nottingham, applying his mind to every process used 
in the preparation of cotton, and introducing improvements into all. 
He may be said to be the founder of the factory system, for he so 
multiplied processes and established continuous action among them as 
to render it necessary to have all in one building. 

A terrible war against the promoters of machinery raged in Lanca- 
shire — a result of the panic of the people, who thought to be deprived 
of their bread by the new and extraordinary state of things ; and a 
story is told of Arkwright at this period, which, if true, shows that 
even his domestic happiness was sacrificed to his genius for invention. 
He had just finished and perfected one of his most valuable pieces of 
madiinery, and a mob surrounded his house, threatening his life, and 
the lives of his wife and children. His wife, driven wild by fear, 
was seized with a horror of the infernal machine which was the cause 
of all their danger and misery, and going behind her husband's back 
smashed with her own hands the perfected result of all his genius and 
toiL The sequel is sad, for Arkwright, finding his idol broken, and by 
the one person from whom he had a right to expect sympathy, walked 
out of his home and never would see the woman who had so wronged 
him again. 

James Hargreaves, a weaver of Kackbum, also invented a spinning 
machine (in 1764), which had no connection in principle witii that of 
Arkwright, but has been united with it in the most successful manner. 
He had a wife and seven young children, and felt very keenly the 
difficulty of obtaining weft, with enough of which the toils of his entire 
family were quite unable to supply him. It happened that a one- 
thread spinning-wheel was overturned by accident on his cottage-floor, 
and as the wheel and spindle went on revolving, the idea occurred to 
him that it would be an excellent plan to place spindles perpendicularly 
instead of horizontally, leading him to conclude that he nught make 
several spindles, thus placed in a row, revolve by the turning of a 
single wheel. And thus he got at the principle of spinning several 
threads at once. 

Hargreaves' machine was called the spinning-jenny, perhaps, because 
''jenny" was the familiar name among the spinners for their old 
hand-wheel, and the spinning- jenny was merely a multiple of the 
hand-machine, not establishing, like Arkwright's or Wyatt^s inven- 
tions, any new principle, but solely applying itself to facilitating 
the last stage of the process — tiie turning of tiie '' roving" into yam. 
For some time Hargreaves kept his own secret, using his '' jenny '' to 
supply his own loom ; but he, too, was betrayed by his wife, whose 
vanity could not endure that the neighbours should be kepl^in ignorance 



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Jottings in Lancashire. 43 

of her husband's achieyement An alarm spread at onoe, and a mob 
aasembled, his machinery was broken, and he was threatenedjwithdeath* 
Escaping to Nottingham, he took out a patent; but too late for the suc- 
cess of his own fortunes. Havingsold some of his machines, to procure 
clothing for his children, his patent was useless to him, and he lost the 
profit of his useful discoyery. He had, howeyer, the satisfaction of 
seeing his " jenny," which was a domestic implement, soon introduced 
into eyery cottage in Lancashire : the fact haying been proyed to the 
satisfaction of all poor toilers that, by the aid of the new machine, one 
woman could spin as much yam as sixteen or twenty persons formerly 
produced with the old familiar hand-wheel ; and thus had been re- 
medied, at one stroke, the old-standing grieyance of the deficiency of 
weft. Hazgreayes does not appear to haye been as unrelenting as 
Arkwright towards the woman who had played him false, for we are 
told that, though depriyed of his patent, he was able by his industry 
to earn a sufficient competence, and left a decent proyision for his wife 
and children. 

One mile from Bolton stands a curious old house, one of those 
ancient mansions we haye spoken of, called '' Kall-in-the-Wood," 
formerly the seat of the StarkLe family, and at present used as a farm- 
house and cottages. It is a good specimen of the Elizabethan style of 
architecture, and has often been taken as a model for buildings of 
that school. In a note on this old Hall, which we haye met with 
lately, we are shown a picturesque glimpse of another hard-working 
inyentor, Crompton, who liyed and toiled in part of the noble old dwell- 
ing in its decadence. The passage is worth quoting ; and the Hall is 
thus described : 

'' Standing on a bold piece of rocky ground, the position is admir- 
able, and the approach to it yery picturesque. After following a green, 
shady lane for about a mile, we descended a steep hill, at the bottom 
of which is an ayenue of trees, on the right a wide stream of water, 
and on the left broken ground, coyered with trees and fern. The 
stream is crossed by a long wooden .bridge, just wide enough for a 
horse to pass. The principal feature in the house, from this point, is 
a large bow-window, with mouldings, balls, and other ornaments, of a 
later date than the house itself. The Hall is a superior specimen of 
the half-timbered style. The road up to the house appears to haye been 
cut from the solid rock, and is yery steep and circuitous ; but we were 
rewarded for our trouble. The oldest part of the edifice seems to haye 
neyer suffered by improyements of any kind ; no square sash windows 
in apertures which should contain leaded lights, although the square 
entrance, with its stone-muUioned windows, has eyidently been built 
since the original erection of the house itself. There is here a shaft 
of diimneys, consisting of three square shafts placed lozenge-ways, 
with a bold moulding at the top. A yery wide window, with twenty- 
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44 Jottings in LanccLshire. 

four lights, is called Crompton's window, where his bench stood. In 
that room one of the greatest improvements was devised and effected 
in the spinning of cotton. Samuel Grompton, residing in this old part 
of Hall-in-the-Wood, there invented the mule, a machine so called 
from its oombining the principles of the spinning- jenny and the water- 
frame. That window and that room cannot be reg^urded without a 
deep interest. Of how many human beings did the lives and fortunes 
hang in suspense as the thoughts and expedients of Crompton's mind 
there came, went, trembled, and grew firm, and finally were carried 
into effect. We regard the spot as one far more interesting than the 
sanguinary battle-field on which our fellow-creatures have been so 
immolated, wives widowed, children orphaned, the resources of nations 
destroyed, to gratify the caprice of demented rulers, or serve the pur- 
poses of individual ambition."* 

Notwithstanding the persevering efforts of devoted men who 
strained their talents to the utmost and risked their all to advance the 
manufactures of their country, it is curious to hear of the bitter oppo- 
sition with which they were met, not only by the hungry millions of 
the poor, who feared to see the bread snatched from their children's 
mouths, but by people in high places, and notably by merchants and 
members of Parliament. Ireland is not the only land where the State 
did, in the past, set its irresistible machinery to work to crush the 
home.industries which brought bread to the multitude. In the reign 
of (George I. an act was passed prohibiting the use of printed and 
dyed calicoes, then imported from India, and this was done with a view 
to protecting the silk and woollen trades at home. When Arkwright, 
therefore, sent forth his plain calicoes the excise refused to let them 
pass unless the same rate of duty was paid for them as that charged 
for Indian goods. He was forbidden under the heaviest penalties to 
produce printed calicos at all ; and when an appeal was made to Parlia- 
ment asking to have English calico placed on a legislative equality with 
other domestic manufactures the appeal was opposed by all the cotton 
manufactures of Lancashire. 

Hostility to machinery was manifested not alone by the operatives 
who dreaded that it would lessen the demand for labour, but by people 
of every class. Even in 1799, when wages were high and work plenty 
furious mobs scoured the country round Blackburn, destroyed every 
<' jenny " Ihat worked more than twenty spindles, demolished carding- 
machines, water-frames, and every machine worked by horses or 
other power. How completely time and experience have shown the 
fallacy of such . fears it is useless to tell ; for everyone knows how 
machinery has increased the demand for labour, and how in Lanca- 
shire the heightened value of land, required for building, has swelled 

• '* Tllustmtecl Ilinerary of the C«*iiiity of I^mcaitter *' 

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Jottings in Lancashire. 45 

the rental of the landholders. Gradually the opposition disappeared, 
the educated became ashamed of their shortsightedness, and the opera- 
tiyes acknowledged that good times had come, for their labour was at a 
premium. In some instances the great manufacturers became the 
liberal benefactors of numbers of poor people, and the '' cotton lords " 
had often as much pow^ over, and as much influence with, their 
dependents as ever had those other |lords of by-gone feudal days. 
That they often made the best use of their power, while amassing 
riches for themselves, is undoubted, as in the case of the Messrs. 
Orant, of Bamsbottom, whom Dickens has immortalised as the 
Cheeiyble Brothers. In a flat valley for which Halcombe Hill makes 
a bold background, stood Grant's Cotton Mills, Grant's church, and a 
great quadrangular building which is the printing establishment. 
Many stories are told, not only of the benevolence of these good men, 
but of the delicate and thoughtful manner in which their benefits were 
conferred on their less fortunate fellow-creatures. One anecdote will 
suffice as an illustration : 

Mr. Grant became interested in a poor young man, who was a 
student, but who, being threatened with consumption, was unable to 
proceed with his work. A warm climate was recommended by the 
doctors, but the youth was quite too poor to be able to follow such 
advice. Mr. Grant contrived to make his acquaintance, and said to him : 

•' We have a vessel about to sail, which is to touch at M . It will 

be a kindness to the captain if you give him your company so far ; and 
when you arrive our correspondent will see about getting you a lodg- 
ing at a moderate cost." 

The youth was overjoyed, and a few days before he sailed Mr. 
Grant informed him that he was sending a messenger out to his agent, 
by the same ship, adding : '- 1 hope you will be able to pay him some 
attention on the voyage." The fellow-traveller thus recommended to 
him, was in reality despatched with him to act as his nurse ! On his 
arrival he was invited to the house of Mr. Ghrant's agent, till such time 
as a lodging could be procured for him. 

Day followed day, and no lodging could be found. Many apologies 
were made to the student, and at last the agent said : " Will you do 
me a particular favour, and remain with me ? It is such a pleasure to 
have an Englishman to talk to." 

Of course all this was done by Mr. Grant's directions ; and though 
tiie consumptive student's life could not be saved, yet his last days 
were made tranquil by the kindness of his generous benefactor, who 
was heard to say, while regretting his untimely fate, '* Thank Qody the 
far fellow never found out how we managed for him P* 

{To he continued,) 

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( 46 ) - 
THE LIGHT OF THE WOELD .♦ 

BT F. FSNTBILL. 

THE Lord and King stands at tlie door, 
And knocks, and says, '^ Friend, let me in, 
For I am weary and footsore." — 
Alas ! the gate is barred by sin. 

His royal bead is pierced with thorns. 
And stained with blood his kingly hands. 

Ah I canst thou sleep while thus He mourns f 
And canst thou rest while thus He stands ? 

He bears no weapon — only light, 
Wherewith to flood thy darkened heart ; 

Then open quick — and all the night 
Of sin and sorrow will depart. 

But if, hearing, thou wilt not rise, 

Perchance his Toice may sound no more : 

He'll turn away with saddened eyes, 
And ne'er again knock at thy door. 

Yet locks and bars at last must yield 
When Death's cold hands upon them lie : 

Then there will be nor hope nor shield 
For him whose Saviour hath passed by. 



w 



ANOTHER SONNET TO ST. AGNES. 

BY HELENA OALLANAK. 

f ITH modest courage, eyes imdimmed by tears, 
She stood before the tyrant in his might. 
Her martyr's soul prepared for that high flight 
Which soars aboye all earthy crayon fears ; 
A fair child crown'd with thirteen golden years — 
Her rapt gaze fixed, as on the yision bright 
Of her Love's glory breaking on her sight. 
She heard above the Boman's savage jeers 
The Bridegroom's tender mjrstic whisperings. 
So sad though sweet, as if from Calvary's height 
The shadow of the Cross touched her soul's wings, 
And in her virgin- wreath she longed to twine 
The crimson passion-flower with lilies white 
And shining roses for her Spouse Divine. 

* Suggested by Holman Hunt's famous picture, which now hangs in the library 
of Keble College, Ozf ord« /^ ^ ^ ^ T ^ 

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( 47 ) 



SOME PBAOnCAL HINTS ON THE EDUCATION OP 
CHILDBEN. 

Yon baye asked me, dear friend, to give you some ideas upon the 
management and gOYemment of the frail little creatures who 
look up in your faoe and call you '' Mother." 

We hear very much about the duties of children towards their 
parents, and, alas I so yery little upon the other side of the question. 

Accept it as a truth that no woman can govern others, unless she 
can fbnst control herself, unless she has learned the hard lesson of self - 
restraint. 

Of course there are plenty of women who have children, and their 
responsibility seems to end with bringing them into the world ; the 
little ones know no training, and no real motherly care. But we aim 
higher than this merely animal existence. We want our children to 
rise up, and " call us blessed" 

Think for one moment what it nteam to be a mother. It means to 
<»11 into existence a new soul, to bear the burdens and cares of this 
world; and yet we, rashly, ignorantly, take upon ourselves the prero- 
gative of the Creator, and summon forth the little being from chaos 
into life. 

The first part of our children's lives should be spent like that of 
ciher yoxmg animals, principally in eating and sleeping. Gk> to that 
grand old nurse, Mother Nature, and leam a lesson from the way she 
cares for her babies. Given plenty of good air and sunshine, slowly 
but surely you will see the tiny being develop, and seem to become 
conscious of its existence. Now, the little mind, hitherto lying dor- 
mant, awakens, and at last, to your surprise, you find that, instead of 
having a plaything — a live one, in place of your dead dolls — ^you are 
confronted by a human being, smidl, I grant you, but Hke personality is 
distinct : there, in miniature, you have all the passions, as love, hate, 
and remorse, flit in rapid succession through the baby mind. 

I consider this time the most important in your child's life. You 
can now mould and form the plastic material into what shape you will* 
Given the right bias, the pliant twig will grow into a glorious tree, the 
pride of the forest, a shelter for the weary traveller from the scorching 
noonday heat, a refuge from the storm ; but cramp and cripple the 
tender shoot, and you produce a stunted, dwarfed monstrosity, good 
for nothing, ctmibering the earth. 

Break your child's will, simply because your will is to have it de- 
velop in another way, and you are employing brute force, exciting in 
the little heart evil feeling of revenge, a thirst for power, and lon^;ing 

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48 Some Practical Hints an the Education of Children. 

to be big enough to strike back. In a word, you are preventing the^ 
natural prowth, the privilege of everything on Gbd's earth. 

Let your children understand that you represent the highest law, and 
that when they are old enough, and wise enough, they can govern 
themselves ; but until then they must obey you, as you obey God. 

When you punish let it be with great pity and tenderness, because 
it is your duty, and you dare not neglect it. Do this, and after the 
punishment, keep your child beside you, with your loving arm around 
it, and you have wrought a never-to-be-forgotten lesson of the justice 
and kindness of God. Strike your child once in anger, and the effect 
upon the sensitive Organisation and the damage done to the shrinking^ 
nerves may never be repaired ; but wise, judicious control you must 
have. Hold the reins firmly, but gently. Never be teased into giving 
up what you have once decided muit be done. Such yielding is des- 
tructive of all authority. 

Now, another point. You want to have your children modest, 
truthful, and pure. As Emerson says *' if you want your neighbour to 
love Jesus Christ, let him see how much you love Him." So, I say^ 
let your children see the " beauty of holiness " in your life, show 
them that you are modest, and scorn a pretence even as a lie. The 
little critics have sharp eyes, and xmderstand very clearly the difference 
hetween preaehing and practmng, "But," perhaps you will exclaim,. 
•' you expect me to revolutionise my whole life because I have children 
to bring up ?" So I do; for real motherhood (and we don't care for 
the imitation), meeniBjust this, an utter self-abn^ation, and a concen- 
tration of every thought and feeling on the work before you, of train-^ 
ing souls for tiie kingdom of heaven. 

You cannot over-estimate the importance of surroundings upon the 
physical and mental condition of your children. So I urge you to 
choose for them a large, sunny room, well lighted, and in winter 
well warmed; here collect the treasures that delight children, and 
hang your walls with pictures, scenes from the good old fairy stories, 
that go down from generation to generation. Try to get games that 
mean something ; animalfl to take to pieces, and put together again, 
horses to be harnessed into carts, &c. &c. Have it laid down as a 
nursery axiom that broken things do not mend themselves, and that 
wilful destruction of property is followed by going without. In this- 
way you can check recklessness. Have meum and tuum respected. The 
small inhabitants of your '' earthly paradise " may borrow courteously 
from each other, but must never violate the laws of property. 

Hake your children pick up their toys, and wait on themselves- 
when possible ; and absolutely forbid their making their nurse a slave, 
in this way they will learn to be self-helpful and self-reliant. 

Win your children's confidence, by proving yourself a sympathiser 
in every joy and sorrow. So few of us, older ones, realise how all 

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Some Practical Hints on the Education of Children. 49 

absorbing the affcdrs of the present are to our little ones, and how 
caailj the tender feelings are wounded by even the implied suggestion 
that you don*t care. 

Answer all questions truthfully, and spare no pains to make your 
meaning understood. 

As to the great stumbling-block in so many parents' way, namely, 
physiological questions, there is but one rule to be given. What you 
don't tell will be found out in some way ; so, simply say : " Wait until 
jou are old enough, and I will explain everything that I can, but until 
thenpromisethat you will not question anyone else." Ten to one, the pro- 
mise will be loyally kept, and you will have the satisfaction of instruct- 
ing your children in a proper way, instead of them getting all sorts of 
ideas on those matters, from servants and their companions. Be- 
member that ignorance does not necessarily imply purity, but that 
purity means a knowledge of good and evil acquired under such 
auspices, that the whole bent of the child's nature is directed towards 
the higher and not lower aspirations. The days have gone by ** when 
the lions would turn and flee from a maid in the strength of her 
purity." No ; the lions of the present time must be met and van- 
quished by a purify based on, a sound, practical knowledge of things 
as they are, not as we fancy them. Never stoop to be untruthful on 
these matters, for falsehoods serve merely as a stimulus to improper 
curiosity : and, have your children detect you in a lie, and their confi- 
dence in your statements ceases to exist. 

As to education, I think far more of what is learned at home than 
at schooL For aU children do not want to be run into the same 
mould, like tallow candles. Your dreamy, sentimental child wants a 
different training from the robust, practical sister. Cultivate any special 
tastes, but beware of exciting the emotional nature, for that develops 
rapidly enough if left alone. Train the muscles to endure fatigue. 

If you must send your children to school, let it not be before they 
are ten years old. School life is intended to teach habits of industry, 
application, and observation ; not to cram the little brains, but to 
train the children to use their faculties, to educate themselves after the 
allotted period devoted to study has passed. 

Do not subject your children, especially your girls, to an atmos- 
phere of flattery and praise. Let them accept their beauty, if they 
have any, simply as an additional gift from God, for which a strict 
account must be rendered at the great Judgment Day. Do not feel 
afraid to have your children know that they are pretty ; if it is a, fact, and 
accepted as such, it will do the possessor no more harm than the state- 
ment that he or she has a pair of legs. 

I have said very little about direct religious teaching, because I 
take it for granted that you are actuated by principle, and not caprice, 
in your life's work. Let your children see you kneel night and morning 

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50 New Books. 

to beg a blessing on yourself, and on those you bold most dear. Set 
the example, it is sure to be followed by the little imitatorsL Earnest- 
ness and sincerity will stamp an abiding impression on the tender souls 
that no time nor circumstance can efface. In olden times, even sacred 
manuscripts were sometimes taken, the writing erased, and the faith- 
ful, patient work of years covered with infamous stories ; but the first 
text was never really eradicated, only buried. So on your children's 
minds, as they advance in age, and pass from xmder your immediate 
control, the world may scribble, we know not what strange records on 
the fair, white pages ; but, believe me, underneath, ready to start out 
some day in legible characters, will remain the everlasting impression 
of the lessons learned beside your knee. 

What more, dear friend, can I say to you? Nothing, except that 
you strive in every way to have your children healthy and strong. 
And, as a logical sequence, they will be cheerful and happy. 

Study the great fundamental laws of hygiene, and impress on your 
children the solemn truth, that every broken law, whether of our spiri- 
tual or physical nature, brings its own certain punishment, from which 
there can be no escape. 

Educate your children in the highest sense of the word, and you 
have put into their hands a lever, far more powerful than that of 
Archimedes ; one powerful enough to raise the dense mass of ignorance 
and sin. There is wickedness and misery enough in the world, but 
endeavour to make your comer of it brighter and better, and your far- 
reaching influence will tell on generations yet unborn. Understand 
that on the wise, skilful training of the souls committed to your charge 
hangs a momentous issue, a tremendous power for good or ill. 

H. D. T. 



NEW BOOKS. 

I. JBracton. A Tale of 1812. By the Rev. W. H. Andbbdon, S.J. 
(London: Bums & Gates. 1882.) 

Amokg our Catholic writers who seek to provide edification and amuse- 
ment for some classes of readers in this novel-reading age. Father 
Anderdon is one of the most successful, if we go by that very practical 
test — the number of editions that his books run to. In the closely- 
printed page at the end of this volume, which gives a list of worka 



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New Books. 51 

<< By the £07. W. H. Anderdon/' we notice that his '* Adventures of 
Owen Eyans" has reached a seventh edition ; so has his '' Tales of St. 
Barnard/' otherwise called ''In the Snow;" while his ''Afternoons 
with the Saints" is in the Ninth Edition. His new book, " Bracton/' 
is in many respects his best. He has taken a broader canvas and laid 
on his colours with a bolder yet more careful hand. His descriptions 
of scenery, both home and foreign, although very wisely given only in 
mere incidental snatches, are very good indeed. A good part of the story 
is told in letters passing to and fro between the various " persons of the 
drama.' ' Many of these letters are admirable as letters ; but we question 
if this new experiment will upset the general verdict against correspon- 
dence as a vehicle for story-telling. However, in book- form the letters 
tell Uieir story in a very clear and sprightly way ; and our objection lies 
chiefly against the effectiveness of the original arrangement as carried 
out through many monthly issues of a certain periodical The readers 
of that periodical will find '* Bracton" as an independent volimie to be 
very pleasant and wholesome reading, fit to gratify the insatiable appe- 
tite which too often falls on food not quite so safe as is here served up 
for the story-reading public. We expect that the Christmas season* 
which will be raging when this notice appears, will drive "Bracton" 
very far towards a second edition, and that it will in time overtake the 
most popular in that long list of Father Anderdon's works to which we 
made allusion at the beginning. Almost nothing of all Cardinal 
Wiseman's writings is now read except his one beautiful story, 
**Fabiola." We perceive with pleasure that the Athenaum of De- 
cember 10 describes "Bracton" as "a thoroughly moral story, yet a 
story full of exciting and sensational chapters," and says that " the 
plot is well sustained to the last." 

II. Twenty JEsBoyi of£lia. Edited by J. J. Dohebty, LL.B. (Dublin: 

M. H. Gill & Son. 1881.) 
We trust the "Intermediate" lads will study this book with as much 
care and as much delight as the present reviewer. Of course almost 
every one of these " Selections from Charles Lamb" was familiar to 
US already ; but the schoolboy notes of this edition enhance our pleasure 
considerably in reading poor Elia*s quaint and beautiful conceits. 
Mr. Doherty prefixes a brief, tasteful sketch of Lamb's life and 
works ; and seventy pages at the end are devoted to very minute and 
satisfactory notes on the many hard allusions in the essays. The reader 
ought to be helped more in finding out the expressions which are 
cleared up in the notes, and also to be referred from the notes back to 
the essay which they illustrate. Ought not Mr. Doherty obey the 
prophecy of the Magnificat and call the singer thereof the Blessed A'irgiu 
Mary ? He has done his editorial task remarkably well. 



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52 ^cw Books. 

m. Musie of Ireland, Collected, Edited, and Harmonized for the 
Pianoforte. By the late Geokoe Petkie, LL.D., M.E.I.A* (Dublin: 
M. H. Gill & Son. 1882.) 

With the help of Dr. Stokes' full and sympathetic biography we must 
soon make our readers acquainted with this warm-hearted Irishman, 
who is already almost forgotten by his countrymen. One exercise of 
his patriotic zeal was the preservation of old Irish music. At the very 
moderate price of eighteenpence Messrs. Gill furnishes us with a col- 
lection of thirty-four Irish tunes, with the history of each air, and the 
Irish words, with a literal translation. The paper used is of the largest 
music size. 

IV. Instructions for Particular States and Conditions of Life. By the 
Rev. John Gothek. Edited by the Rev. M. Comeefoed. (Dublin: 
M. H. Gill & Son. 1882.) 

The zealous pastor of Monasterevan ought to have made his very brief 
introduction a little longer by giving any particulars that can be ascer- 
tained about his venerable author, whose pious instructions would im- 
press us more if we knew the circumstances in which they must have 
been written in the worst times of the English penal laws. No ordi- 
nary courage and zeal were needed to compose and publish works of 
calm and solid spirituality in the midst of such surroundings. God 
grant that our better opportunities may in due proportion be turned 
to as good account as amongst the priests and Catholic people of those 
days in England, Scotland, and Ireland. Toiovrtov eare vpoyouwv, says 
some one in Xenophon's Anabasis. ** Of such fathers are ye !" 

V. Principles of Catholic Education. A Sermon. By the Rev. Whjjam 
Hayden, S.J. (Dublin : M. H. GiU & Son, 1882.) 

The principle of St. Ignatius's method of the Particular Examen is 
applied by the world to a great many things. '' One thing at a time.'* 
Plurihus intentus minor Jit ad singula sensus. At present the public 
is concentrating all its attention on the single question of ''Land! 
Land 1'* But '' not in bread alone doth man live." This word of our 
Divine Lord is the text and keynote of Father Hayden's discourse on 
education, the greater part of which would be more accurately described 
by some such title as ** The Dignity of a Soul." But indeed it is the 
soul's dignity and eternal destinies which give to the Church her right 
to watch zealously over the training of her children, and it is on these 
that the '' principles of Catholic education " are based. 

VI. Credo : or, JustinU Martyrdom. A Story for Children . By the 
Rev. Francis Dkew. (London: R. Washboume. 1882.) 

Fatheb Drew is quite too humble in calling this " a story for children." 
It is much more than that. Children could not understand the clever- 
ness of the nomenclature under which the Oxford Colleges are dis- 



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New Books. 53 

.poised. It is a story for joung men like the students who lunch and 
talk together so pleasantly in the first two chapters. It was there^-at 
X>age 14 — that we laid aside the little book to take up our pen. And 
now we lay aside our pen to make ourselves further acquainted with 
the book — ^whioh is more than every reviewer would do. * * * After 
finishing the story (it is very short and the type is very readable) wo 
pronounce it a very well- written '' tale of conscience." Father Drew 
evidently knows what he is talking about : else we should accuse him 
of outrageous exaggeration in maMng the Anglican Abbess not only 
say her Eosary but finish the five decades before leaving the chapd. 
which she was showing to some visitors ! 

TIL Eatm'i Almanac for Ireland for the Year 1882. (Dublin: W. H. 

Smith & Son.) 
Thb ninth yearly issue of this most laboriously and carefully-compiled 
summary of Irish social facts. Amongst the additions to the matter 
•contained in previous issues the most important is the very full and 
exact information furnished about the working of the new Land Com- 
mission, the judicial rent in every case yet decided being given side by 
side with the former rent, &c. A supplement of later decisions will be 
given hereafter for a halfpenny stamp by the publishers of JSaeon*9 
Jilmanae. 

Vm. Mary Aitenhead : her Life, her Worlc^ and her Friends, Giving a 
History of the Foundation of the Congregation of the Irish Sisters of 
Charity. By S. A. Second Edition, revised. (Dublin : M. H. Gill 
& Son, 1882.) 

Many wiU prefer the form, and all will prefer the price, of this new 
edition of the admirable Life of the Foundress of the Irish Sisters of 
Charity. A year sufficed to exhaust a large impression of the original 
magnificent library edition of the Work, one of the finest volumes ever 
issued from the Irish Press. This popular issue forms still a portly 
tome with thick binding and ample octavo page. Some notes have 
been added, and nothing has been taken away except a few errors and 
•one or two photographs. We are glad that the frontispiece, the 
portrait of Mrs. Aikenhead, has been retained with the fac-simile of her 
handwriting, which many ladies and gentlemen would do well to 
imitate. Our renewed study of this model biography has increased 
our admiration of the amazing industry which has gathered together so 
much information of all kinds that could illustrate the subject. Its 
great merit has been acknowledged not only by Irish, but by English 
journals so impartial as the Saturday Review, the Spectator, &d the 
Qnardian. Indeed we wish that space had been secured in this second 
edition for extracts from the reviews of the first edition, such as will 
be found on one of the first of our own advertisement pages. No 
portion of the work! seems to have given greater satisfaction than 

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54 New Books. 

the introductory essay on the penal days in Ireland. We can refer ta 
no abler sketch of a sadly interesting period of Irish history. It is 
not easy to move a vote of thanks to a pair of initialB ; and we trust 
that on the title page of the third edition " 8. A." will give her name 
in full. "We need not change the construction of this last sentence so 
as to avoid the feminine pronoun, for to our readers, at least, those 
two capitals form no meaningless symbol. 

On second thoughts we have decided to make the '' Opinions of 
the Press/' just referred to, not merely an adjunct but an integral 
portion of our present Number. Like many advertisements, they will 
interest several readers more than what sometimes goes by the name 
of original matter. Here is what the Reviewers say of the '* Life of 
Mrs. Aikenhead ": — 

" To those wbo bare the grace to appreciate the story of a life dedicated with 
heroic courage and holy seal to the cause of pbihmthropy this book will proTe deb'ght- 
fully interesting. . . . The grace, spirit, and facility of the author's style gire additional 
fascination to matter intrinsically attractire. The book is no dry record of dat«8 
and facts, but a bright and animated narrative, abounding in striking portraits, 
picturesque descriptions of scenery, and yirid delineations of life and manners in ani 
age which, though not very distant, was strangely unlike our own.*' — The Morning 
Past, August 25, 1879. 

" The bright, firm, and genial character of Mary Aikenhead has been admirably 
drawn. . . . The book tells us a great deal more than the simple life of Mary Aiken- 
head. It giyes a lirely and most interesting picture of Cork and Dublin in the days 
to which it refers ; and yery few of the celebrities of the time do not find in it some 
mention. But the fault is on the right side, and we cannot quarrel with a yolume, 
©yery page of which has its own interest . . . Her letters are certainly among 
the most yaluable of its multifarious contents."— TAf Month, September, 1879. 

** It describes an interesting and important experiment in the treatment of Irisb 
human nature. English administrators of Ireland might learn perhaps eyen more- 
from it than the admirers of the beneyolent ladies for whose edification we may 
presume it to haye been compiled."— 2%« Saturday Review, September 6, 1879. 

"This really enthralling biography hardly requires a recommendation. The- 
story of Mary Aikenhead is one that cannot but appeal to the best sympathiea- 
of every reader. ... To understand in. some faint degree the vast importance of 
the work undertaken and gloriously accomplished by the fragile hands of Mary 
Aikenhead, it is necessary to know something of the period in which her bt was cast, 
and this information is very bountifully supplied by the biographer. ... a truly 
charming and effectiye style, a keen appreciation of character, great care and discri- 
mination in the collecting and dealing with facts, and a happy facility in placing be- 
fore the reader a life-like representation of the scenes and personages." — The Weekly 
Begister, September 27, 1879. 

"This large book— for it is a royal octavo of 512 pp. of thick paper — bespeaks 
our interest on first opening it, by the exceeding beauty of the portrait on the frontis- 
piece, which is full of sweetness and piety ; yet beneath the hood and veil there is a 
certain archness that shows us that while becoming a reverend mother, the owner of 
that face had not censed to be an Irishwouian. * Did you think we lost our heart 
when we took the buLit?' said Mary Aikeubeud to u person who wondered to see- 



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li«r giTiDg waj to natural grief, and she certainly neTer lost her strong characteristio 
whether of heart, humoar, or, what is more rare, of strong common sense. . . . 
Hie book is lengthj and thoroughly Irish ; but we hare read it with much enjoyment, 
aod recommend it to all interested in the like work in our own Church."— TA^ 
Omardian, December 10, 1879. 

** This memoir, although too Toluminous for most resdert, is interesting fronv 
more than one point of riew. It gires not merely a graphic portraiture of a charac- 
ter which deserres to be studied, but also many lirely sketches of Irish society in the 
closing days of the last and the early part of the present century, presented in an 
aspect which differs from that which we generally meet with. ... A great many 
t^ing anecdotes are giren of Mrs. Aikenhead in her out-door as well as in her 
conrent life, and much that is interesting is also told of her friends and her sup- 
porters, as well as of the works carried on in the twenty foundations of the nobly 
self-sacrificing Irish Order. It wouM take too long to indicate a tithe of the points 
of mtereet in the Tolume, but we must draw the reader's attention to the charming 
passages which describe the life of the little girl, first on Sason*s Hill, where, under the 
care of her foster-parents, John and Mary Borke, she passed her six earliest years ; 
and afterwards in the house of her father, to which she was accompanied by the 
faithful nurse and her husband. . . . ^Whoerer may be the 'S. A.' to whom we 
are indebted for the biography of Mary Aikenhead, she has presented U8 with a 
work of considerable interest, although at the same time, as we hinted at starting, 
it would hare been none the worse, or rather we may say, considerably the better, 
for a little judicious condensation.** — The Spectator, February 21, 1880. 

**Tbo0e who wish to see conyents inspected and are curious to know what goes- 
on within their walls ought to read it, for minute particulars are giTen as to- 
many flings not generally known, and a broad light is thrown on the daily life, 
trials, difficulties, and successes of a hard-working community of women. . . . Whero 
history is touched upon* so far from finding the subject tiresome, as some of u» 
ore wont to find the history of our sister island, we turn back and re-read the 
passage to try and discorer wherein the charm may lie. Nothing is stated rashly ;. 
copious notes and references bear witness to the writer's industry and conscientiousness, 
and it is worth obserring that all historical statements made here agree very re- 
mariotbly with those of Mr. Lecky, though S. A. has sought information from rare- 
memoirs, books of trayel now not easily found, antiquated 'tours ' made by English 
men. Frenchmen, and Italians, who yisited Ireland in the dajs of her trouble and 
gaye their impressions to the world ; while the author of the ' History of England in 
the Eighteenth Century' has gone for his facts to the state papers and public records 
lately made accessible to the world. For all who enjoy a brilliant and picturesque bit 
of historical writing where much that is interesting is condenred into small space, we- 
recommend the perusal of the Introductory sketch which, with a backward glance 
oyer times just gone by, leads up to the moying cause of Mary Aikenhead's charitablo 
work."— Tib P«i, May 29, 1880. 

** This is decidedly a remarkable book, one which must attract a good deal of 
attention, at least in Ireland. . . . From the nature of the subject it obviously does 
not come immediately within our scope ; but a meritorious effort in Irish literature is 
really so scarce a thing amongst us, that we willingly go a little out of our way to 
notice the present publication. ... It is the style, in fact, which the general reader 
cannot fail to admire. Light, graceful, simple, familiar, often picturesque, always 
natural and free from affectation, the language is really charming, and the book reads- 
like a noyel but for the realities which it constantly places before us. ... *' — Tho Dublin- 
Evening Mail, July 4, 1879. 

** The great mass of materials to which the author has had access have been 



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56 New Books. 

arrancred in a clear and masterly manner ; the work is elegantly written throughout, 
and illustrated bj erer j literary adjunct consistent with the subject in a stjle which 
'renders the pages extremely interesting to general readers ; while by the Catholic 
community, to whom it is specially addressed, it will henceforth undoubtedly be 
treasured among the clatisic compositions of Irish religious Literature. • • . The 
Introductory Essay treats of the Penal Days in Ireland, and presents a retrospectiTe 
surrey of our history from the earliest days, but derives its prominent and particular 
importance from the account it gires of the progress of the Catholic faith in this 
island, of the successire foundations of the numerous religious establishments origi- 
nated by the sacred heroism of its ministers during a long series of ages, and of the 
benefits thus conferred on our population. We hare nerer met with an essay on 
this subject which, within the limits of some sixty pages, is so copious in the variety of 
interesthig information it affords, and presents that information to the reader in 
ft manner and style so succinct and elegant ** — Tht Irishmen^, July 19, 1879. 

** Few will expect to find in the large volume, with its broad page and dear type^ 
not only the record [of the life of a noble woman, but also a masterly sketch of the 
history of our own country in and after the penal days ; . . . a most interesting 
gallery of speaking portraits of remarkable men and women now passed away ; and 
a mirror-like reflection of events succeeding each other in our country, between the 
years 1787 and 1858. . . . Yet on such wide lines has the work before us been con- 
structed, furnishing such pleasant, amusing, instructive, and edifying reading as it 
aeldom met with, even in this age of biographies. . . • The pictures of Cork society. 
Catholic and Protestant, as it was at the time when Mary vras grown up, vrill be 
read with the utmost interest. Great names are linked together, and the outlines of 
famous characters and faces traced, as many brilliant or interesting forms cross the 
stage. . . . We feel that we have given no adequate idea of the sterling value of this 
work, neither of the deep interest evoked by the subject nor of the charm of the 
style of the book, which is vigorous and impressiye, simple and dear, and brightened 
by a humour which sparkles delightfully on every page. — *The Irish Monthl^f, August, 
1879. 

'* It would be hard to find a task better fulfilled than is this Life of Mrs. Aiken- 
bead. . . . The book as it stands is a splendid eridence of the wealth of intellectual 
-and mechanical care, skill, and attention lavished on its production by its author and 
by its publisher."— 2%<f Freeman's Journal, August 1, 1879. 

** Without being diffuse and wordy, this biography is long, and enters into an 
unusual amount of particulars. The author has learned some lessons from the prince 
of biographers, and, like Boswell, relies on details as the best means of interesting the 
readers. The consequence is that the 'life of Mary Aikenhead' will find its place in 
many a family and religious house where the books are few ; but the owners are anxious 
that these few should be good ones, books that may be read by old and young once and 
again, often referred to, and regarded as a treasure-house of information, edification, 
and amusement. It will not be long before every Sister of Charity in the world who 
is conversant with the English language will be more or less acquainted with this 
singularly valuable life. Quotations would be endless if we were to quote half that 
deserves to be quoted. Besides the acts and sayings of the central figures, we have 
numerous letters of men and women who have left behind them memories affection- 
ately cherished by the more serious portion of Irish Catholic sodety. Thus 'numerous 
letters of Archbishop Murray are preserved, which, but for this memoir, would never 
have seen the light. The character and lives of minor actors in the piece are 
skillfully portrayed, and no evidence is wanting of careful composition.*' — The Jhblei, 
July 26, 1879. 

** Lives and labours like those of Mrs. Aikenhead not merdy illustrate the character 



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•nd fortanefl of the Irish people, but serre to XDOuld them ; tbej are influences which' 
are in a beneficent operation erery day and erery hour, and some acquaintance with 
them is essential to a correct appreciation of the present condition and the probable 
future of this country. We heartily commend this elegant and interesting Tolume to 
readers of all ranks and classes.'' — The Nation, August 9, 1879. 

" < Mary Aikenhead ' is the life of a nun, the career of the woman who founded 
tlie Irnh Order of Charity. In less masterly hands the undoubted interest of such 
a record would yet be somewhat dry, and attractive mainly to a section of the public. . 
. • We hare not read anything more skilfully condensed and gracefully woren than the 
introductory essay. It ranges oyer the whole period of the national agony, dis- 
playing rather the happy freedom of the story-teller than the methodical treatment 
of the ordinary historian. . . . The book is full of scenes, incidents, and personal 
portraits, culled from history little known outside its pages. We find Lord Edward 
Pit^erald dining, in the garb of a quaker, with Dr. Aikenhead, and haying to fly from 
the house to escape the soldiers who were pursuing him. . . . We ha?e yiews of post- 
Union Dublin, when the city was like a desert, bereft of trade, society, and hope — 
when gloom and despair had settled down upon it— as a consequence of the eternally 
infamous feat of corruption and robbery accomplished by Pitt and Castlereagh We 
are introduced to Dr. Moylan, Bishop of Cork, a most loyable prelate ; the Abb^ 
Bdgeworth, fresh from the horrors of the French Beyolution ; Dr. Murray, eyer-to 
be-kmented Archbishop of Dublin, and guide, philosopher, and friend,' to Miss 
Aikenhead. Mrs. 0*Brien, the still remembered Dublin beauty, has her memory 
fragrantly reyiyed. . . • Poor Gerald Griffin flits in and out, and we are reminded 
of his poem on the Sisters of Charity, inspired by Eey. Mother Aikenhead and the 
holy sisters who laboured with her . . . Williams and Mangan were not the only poets 
whom the sisters knew. . . , Immortal Moore paid them a yisit, . . . We cannot ex- 
haust the list; the reader must know that. The perusal of the volume has been to 
us^ as it must proye to others, a perfect feast. It is fortunate for the memory of Mrs. 
Aikenhead that her historian should be one who knows so well how to render tbo 
biography of a religious as yaried and entertaining as the finest romance." — The 
Catkelie Jhnes, August 8, 1879. 



ELOWERS FOR THE ALTAE. 

BY P. PENTBILL. 

IT has become almost common-place to say that Ireland stands, and has 
stood for centuries, a model to the rest of the Catholic world, show- 
ing what faith and piety really are; and how tme this is, one never 
lealises more forcibly than when, on Sunday mornings, one sees the 
erowds gathering at the doors of some country chapel. Labourers 
who have toiled all the week, old men and women bent with age, 
little children scarce able to walk — they all have come to Mass— many 
walking miles and miles in spite of summer sun and winter snow ; 
and, when they enter the House of God, one feels at once that they 
have come to pray and worship, not to meet each other or to gossip. 

One thing alone strikes the stranger painfully, and that' is the 
want of ornament in the chapels, the lack of flowers on the altars. It 
win be said that this is a trifling fault when more important duties are 

Digitized by VjOOQIC 



58 Flowers for the Altar. 

«o well fulfilled; and, no doubt, that is true. Yet one cannot but 
regret that those who make such heroic sacrifices, and endure so many 
hardships for the Faith, should thus neglect the smaller tokens of their 
piety and zeaL We all know that the hard-worked priests of country 
parishes have no time to spare ; but the young girls living near the 
•church might easily form a kind of little guild, each in turn taking 
charge of the altars for a month or more, and all bringing their con- 
tributions of flowers and fresh leaves. This would be no arduous 
duty ; for twenty minutes, once a week, would do all that is needed, 
and change the desolate, neglected look of many a country church. 

In the north of France, where faith and piety still live, such an 
arrangement exists ; and, as soon as a child has made her first Com- 
munion, her great ambition is to be given the care of the altar. The 
peasant women there work much harder than ours ; yet they always 
And time for the adorning of the altars; and on Saturdays, or early 
Sunday mornings, you meet them hurrying to church, laden with 
flowers, and eager to begin their pious work. 

It will be objected that Irish girls would not know how to set 
about it, and that foreigners have so much more skill in such matters ; 
but the loving hearts of our women would soon teach them what to 
do. I think there is no greater mistake than to suppose that every 
Frenchwoman is bom with a keen sense of the beautiful. On the 
contrary, Jeanne and Marie are often quite wanting in taste, have never 
dreamt of the harmony of tints, and see no difference between primary 
and tertiary colours ; the decorations are always stiff, and often gaudy ; 
but even so, there is in them a chann to which the highest art coidd 
never attain. 

Then, again, it will be said that in the country parishes of Ireland 
there are no flowers, and no hands to cultivate them. But in the 
French peasant's gardens the flowers for the altar grow among the 
lettuces and cabbages. A few hardy blossoms once planted would 
require very little care. Besides, we may feel certain that the little 
children running about the farm-yards would enter heart and soul 
into the work, if they knew that their flowers would grace the altar of 
their dear Mother in heaven. In'summer there would also be the pop- 
pies and wild lilies and ferns ; while for the winter, are there not red- 
berries in the hedges, and flr branches, and ivy ? 

I cannot but think that such simple offerings would have a special 
fltness on the altars of the humble Jesus, who choose to spend his life 
among the holy and common things of this world ; and they would be 
most acceptable in the eyes of Him whose triumphal road was not 
adorned with costly draperies and rare exotics, but with the worn and 
shabby garment of the people, with branches cut from wayside trees, 
and with flowers gathered by the children of the poor. 

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( 59 ) 



DEAD BBOKE: 

A TAIiB OF THB WBSTBBIT STATB8. 

BT DILLON O'bRIBV. 
AUTHO or "nUKK BLAXC," "WIDOW XKLTILLB*8 BOiiRDIlVO-ROims/' fto. fto. 

CHAPTER m. 

nn)iAK diok's fttbs. 

While these changes were taking place in P , some of the charac- 
ters in this sketch were becoming old, while others of them were ad- 
vancing to that glorious period of life, when, with hearts and limbs 
fresh and strong, we long to enter life's battlOi and never dream of 
defeat. 

The stordj blacksmith's step had become somewhat slow, although 
his lusby blows on the anvil still rang out as cheerfully as ever ; and 
the doctor's hunting excursions were now less frequent^ and generally 
confined to the near neighbourhood. 

The two boys had left school — James Allen to work in his father's 
shop — while month after month Dr. McGregor put off sending Eobert 
to college, and the longer he deferred it, the more dif&cult he found it 
to make up his mind to part with liim- 

Bobert perceived the struggle in his father's mind, and said to him 
one day : " Why should it be necessary, father, for me to leave you ? 
I am sure I can learn just as much here with you as in college." 

'* Very well, my boy," said his father, brightening up, " we will 
commence a regular course of reading to-morrow, and in a year or two 
hence you can choose some profession or business. I am not very un- 
easy about you, Bobert, for we have a sufficiency to last both our lives, 
and more than this is a burden and a curse." 

Lucy Evans, too, was now a beautiful, bewitching little faiiy, enter- 
ing her sixteenth year, who had already driven half a dozen diy goods 
clerks to the verge of distraction, their reason being only preserved by 
copious discharges of doggerel verses, which would have the very 
opposite effect on any unfortunate person compelled to read them. 

In this oountiy we are apt to think that interest, regardless of per- 
sonal merit, can secure any appointment, from the lowest to the 
highest, and doubtless, in the main, this is true ; but there is in the 
American character a generous qrmpathy, a manly wish to help the 
weak, not found, to the same extent, in any other nationality. A 
deserving young person is never without friends in America ; a whole 
community will acknowledge the claims of such, cheerfully give a 
helping hand, and rejoice in his or her after-success. There are many 
Vol. X. No. 104, February. 1882. Digitized by Gt)Ogle 



6o Dead Broke. 

causes for the development of this disinterested sympathy. In this 
country, to which hundreds of thousands of poor strangers come eyery 
year, seeking homes, to give a helping hand has become habitual, and 
there is great satisfaction in giving a fellow a push ahead when we know 
that he is likely to keep going on. In Europe, where the crowds are 
so great, and the passages to success so narrow, people undertake the 
work more reluctantly, from a conviction that they may have to keep 
pushing all the time. 

When a vacancy for a teacher occurred in the primary department 

of the public school of P , Lucy Evans, at the suggestion of the 

principal teacher, of whom she was a great pet, applied for the place ; 
and notwithstanding that there were many other applicants, some of 
whose parents were persons of influence, Lucy was unanimously ap- 
pointed by the school-board. 

'' She is an orphan, a good little girl, and a great help to her poor 
aunt, I am told," said a good-natured member of the board, *'we 
mtist give her a chance." 

'^ Of course, of course,'' said the others. So the matter was set- 
tled, and Lucy duly installed in office. 

It was a pleasant thing to drop into the schoolroom, and look at 
the little madam sitting at her raised desk and keeping order among 
her youthful subject8«-the child-face calm and grave itotn the respon- 
sibility of authority; and then when some hardened reprobate of six 
years' old wilfully broke the rules, to mark the contrast between the 
natural mirth of the young eyes and the attempted stem look of the 
other features. At first she foimd it somewhat difficult to walk home 
demurely, when school was out, instead of racing away with the other 
girls, and swinging her bonnet by its long strings ; but on the whole 
she adapted herself to her new position admirabfy. To the two boys, 
whose favourite she was at school, she appeared to have grown about 
five years older than either of them ; she told Bobert that she expected 
soon to hear of his going to college, and '< knocked James all of a 
heap " by the matronly manner in which she expressed her pleasure at 
his commencing to assist his father in the shop, and '' hoped to hear 
of his being a good boy." 

When James Allen began to work in his father's smithy, he had 
some misgivings as to his friend, Bobert McGh*egor ; how would Bobert, 
he thought, who was always well dressed, take to the leather apron 
and black face? There were plenty of well-dressed young fellows 
anxious enough to be on friendly terms with the doctor's son, and James 
clearly saw that from henceforth the difference in their positions 
might make the future relations of himself and Bobert very different 
from what they had been when both were children. 

In debating questions of this kind, we are very apt to be unjust, 
and to take a gloomy satisfaction in fully anticipating/diefmpjl^ed 



Dead Broke. 6i 

■light or iBJTury, and being pr^ared to resent it James had wrought 
himself into this gloomy state of mind, as on the second day after he 
had oommenoed regular work, he stood at the door of the onithy and 
saw his friend coming down the opposite side of the street, with two 
young gentlemen who had been staying for some time at the hotel in 

P , and were just oome back with Bobert from a fishing exoorsion. 

** No, FU not stir from the door," said James to himself; '' if he 
wishes to pass with his fine friends; let him, the street is wide enough ;" 
and he stuck his hands into his trousers pockets, under his leather apron, 
widened out his legs, and squared his shoulders, to meet with becom- 
ing independence the supposed coldness, that for a m<mient his morbid 
fancy led him to expect from his friend. But how thoroughly ashamed 
did the result make him feel ! The moment Bobert caught sight of 
James, standing at the door, his whole face lighted up with pleasure, 
and leading his friends to follow more slowly after, he rushed across 
the street, and taking the young smith's hands in his, shook them 
warmly, thai turning him round about, surreying him from head to 
foot, and laughing all the time, told him he never was so proud of him 
before, he looked so manly in his smith's drees. 

By this time the two young fishermen had crossed oyer the street 
and joined them, whereupon Bobert introduced them to his friend, 
<<]&. James Allen." 

" Where is your father, James ?" he continued ; '' these gentlemen 
are going to spend the rest of the day with me at the cottage, and I 
eannot do without you; ah! — ^herecomesMr. Allen, and I will ask him 
finr the loan of his apjHrentice." 

" Not to-day, Bobert," said Jim, hurriedly. 
"Why, what's the matter with the fellow P" queried Bobert 
"Perhaps, sir,*you'ye grown too proud to know a ' ne'er-do-weal ' 
idler like me?" 

''Well, Bobert, I will follow you up after a little ; go, now, and 
donH keep your friends waiting." 

''AH right," said the other, passing on ; then turning round, he 
called out : '' mind, old boy, if you are not up soon I will come for 
you. 

James turned into the shop, thoroughly ashamed of the wrong he 
had done his friend, in thought. *' What a nice fellow I was, to be 
sure," he said to himself, '' to doubt Bobert." 

Doctor McOregor was a philosopher in his way ; he belieyed in the 
sentiment which the poet who wrote it did not : 

" Man wants but little here below. 
Nor wants that little long." 

He was not soured against the world, nor weary of it, but weaiy of its 
petty ambitions and ceaseless struggles for the beyond, which, when 
readied, lost all the charm that distance lent to it. C^OOqIp 



62 Dead Broke. 

In his youth he had fought life's battle and won, and then without 
regret, retired from the field — ^without caring to gather the spoils — to 
spend the remainder of his life in comparatiye solitude, happy in his 
daily communings with nature, and in doing good to those amongst 
whom he had cast his lot. As his Toluntary retirement from tiie 
busy world, before its toil had worn hun out, and left him unfitted for 
tranquil enjoyment, had brought him happiness, it would not be easy 
to prove a want of wisdom on his part in the step he had taken. But 
in imparting his peculiar views of life to his son, he forgot that he was 
influencing the latter to begin where he himself had left off, and that 
the philosophy which taught him to lay aside his armour and retire 
from the fight might work very disastrously in the case of Bobert, if 
it induced him to neglect proper preparation for the strife, that, though 
unbidden, or unsought, might come to him. Yet, such was the ten- 
dency of Doctor McGregor's influence and teaching on the mind of his 
son. 

If his lot was cast in smooth waters, Bobert thought, why should 
he seek the stormy sea beyond ? Sometimes, indeed, he felt ashamed 
of this aimlessness when he conversed with his friend Jim, and listened 
to the busy plans of the latter; how, *'hewas to become a master 
mechanic, make inventions, take out patents, be presented to the 
President, receive the thanks of Congress," and then Jim would laugh 
his boisterous laugh, making Bx>bert feel that work had its bright 
side too, and for the time he would resolve to be a worker among men« 

A happier home than Dr. McGregor's could not be found in all this 
broad land. Peace, content, and love dwelt in it all the year round, 
with the exception of one short period during the summer, when a 
brother of the doctor's paid him an annual visit. Those visits beoame 
wholly discontinued firom a cause to be hereafter stated. 

Two beings could not be more dissimilar in disposition than Doctor 
McGregor and his brother William. The latter, who was some years 
the elder, resided in Kew York, where he amassed a large fortune by 
speculations, principaUy in real estate. By nature a miser, years and 
the acquisition of wealth had increased his ruling passion to a mania ; 
how to make money, and how to save it, were his two absorbing ideas, 
and his annual visits to Michigan were not caused by any fraternal 
feeling, but for the sole reason that he would be at no expense while 
taking the one month's rest, out of twelve, which his doctor told him 
was necessary for him. 

To be a whole month away from business had a veiy damaging 
efPect on his crabbed temper, and from his arrival to his departure he 
visited his ill-humour on the head of his imoffending brother, and tried 
the latter's patience sorely. The good doctor had to be continually 
saying to himself, '' Well, he is my brother, a guest in my house, and 
he will soon be leaving." This last thought always brought with it a 

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Dead Broke. 63 

sigh of lelief. ^' Yoa were always a fool, Bobert," he would remark. 
" H«re you've buried yourself in this out-of-the-way place, when, if 
you had set up in New York, you could haye made a fortune." 

'' What good would that do me?" asked the doctor, one day, after 
listening to this indictment for at least the hundredth time. 

'^ What good would it do him? the fool asks; what good does it 
do anyone?" 

" Not as much as people suppose ; I thmk, William, you have been 
racing after money aU your life, and caught it, too, yet you do not seem 
particularly happy." This was a home-thrust, and the miser writhed 
under it. His beloved money was assailed, and his barren, withered 
life did not afford one argument in its defence ! He lost all self -controL 

** What are you going to make of that cub of yours ?" he savagely 
asked. 

The doctor's face flushed. '< This is a little too much, William," 
he said ; — " do you speak of my son Bobert ?" 

" Yes, of that young gentleman, if you like the term better." 

'' Well, then, I intend that he shall be a gentleman.'.' 

'* A nice way you are setting about it, allowing him to have for a 
companion an ignorant blacksmith's son." 

'' Perhaps, William, your reading of the term gentleman and mine 
do not agree; I mean by it an honest, truthful, generous-hearted 
man ; you would search for a long time among your dandified young 
gentlemen in New York, before you would find one among them pos- 
sessing in a greater degree those qualities than this blacksmith's son. 
James is a fine fellow ; I am glad he and Bobert are such fast friends." 

" So it would seem ; he makes as free in this house as if it was his 
own ; but I am mistaken if this young gentleman don't turn up some 
day in the penitentiaxy ; — ^he has the regular gallows look." 

This prophecy struck the doctor as being so ridiculous that he took 
a hearty fit of laughter, which restored him quite to a good humour, 
and taking up a book, he strolled out to the garden. 

As the above conversation was carried on in rather high tones, the 
two boys, who were in an adjoining room, xmintentionally overheard 
the most part of it. 

"You must not mind what that crabbed old undo of mine says," 
said Bobert : Jim's face was flushed, Bobert thought, with anger. 

'^ Mind him," said Jim, *' not I ; but, Bobert, did you hear what 
your father said ? Oh, Bobert, he is like one of those old knights you 
read about, only ever so much better." 

*' It is too bad that this old miser from New York should come 
here to torment him," said Bobert. 

" So it is," replied Jim. " Let's try and get even with the old 
fellow, Bobert." 

-How?" 

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64 Dead Broke. 

" I don't know ; but if I liit on a way, will you back me up P" 

" Tou may bet I will," replied Robert. 

By the next day Jim had a plan devised to get even with the old 
miser, for his fayourable opinion of him, and imparted it to Bobert at 
school, who entered into it with the greatest glee. 

'^ He spent all last evening trying to make my father miserable," 
said Robert, " and I won't stand it. If we succeed, Jim, in fooling 
him, he will pack off to New York, and never return, I hope/' 

The plan was a veiy simple one, yet it had features which Jim 
shrewdly surmised would be attractive for Mr. William McGregor. The 
latter had frequently regretted that he had no opportunity, during his 
visits West, to buy any furs from Indians or trappers, all such sales 
taking place in the spring, before his arrival. '* It would be so plea- 
sant," he said, ''to make a little money, and not be idle during a 
whole month." 

Jim generously proposed to befriend him. He should have an op- 
portunity to buy furs. 

There was at tiiis time, in the neighbourhood of P , a vagrant 

Indian, who might be seen almost any day loimging round the streets, 
who, retaining all the instincts of the savage, had engrafted on the 
original stock the civilised habits of drinking and swearing. The boys 

of P had abbreviated his long Indian name into Indian Didc. 

Jim and Robert knew that, for a few plugs of tobacco, Indian Dick 
could be got to do anything except honest labour ; so they informed 
Robert's undo that they knew of an Indian from whom he could pur- 
chase a stock of furs. The miser caught at the bait, almost smiled at 
the boys, and told them that if he made a good purchase he might give 
them a York shilling. 

The next move was to find Indian Dick, which they had no diffi- 
culty in doing ; and on the presentation of some tobacco, and the pro- 
mise of more, together with a silver dollar, the Indian agreed to play 
'' Big Hunter." Accordingly, bright and early next morning the two 
boys had him in the woods, outside the town. Jim, with exquisite relish 
and taste, painted his dirty face, and stuck goose feathers all over his 
head, while Robert rolled up, in innumerable thick wrappers, half a 
dozen rabbit skins, xmtil quite a large-sized pack was made, which 
Indian Dick, with artistic taste, tied with deer sinews. Telling him to 
remain where he was until their return, and that all he diould have to 
do would be to grunt and unfold the pack when told to do so, the boys 
almost weak from excessive laughter, set off for the house. 

Had Doctor McQregor been at home, perhaps his very presence 
would have warned them to give up their wild prank ; but he had left 
in the morning, and was not to retiim till the following day. 

Within an hour-and-a-half after they reached Uie house, Mr. 
William McGregor was anxiously watching Indian Dick as he leisurely 

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Dead Broke. 65 

opened the big pack containing the ▼alaablefars, and granted in answer 
to the numerous questions the former put to him. At length the furs 
were reached, the boys moved to a little distance as Indian Dick, with 
stolid face and satisfied grunt, spread out the six rabbit skins before 
the eyes of the intending purchaser. A fearful change came to the 
iaoe of the latter. A sQent agony of rage, before which the boys 
quailed — making them wish undone that which they had done — trans- 
fixed him, and left him for a few moments powerless to move or with- 
draw his gaze from the pack; then he raised his eyes, and without 
regarding Jim or the Indian in the least, he gave Bobert one long, 
concentrated, diabolical look of hatred, and walked silently away. 

'<TJgh," said Indian Dick, " him damn mad." 

I regret that truth compeb me to state the exact words of Indian 
Dick on this occasion ; I know that there are a great many people 
who would expect this noble red man to say, '' He ia as fierce as the 
north wind rushing through the leafless forest," or something similar; 
but Dick was a dTilised Indian. Many good people had taken great 
pains to dvilise him, and this was the depressing result. He said : 

•* Hiwn ilmmw mad." 

The two boys looked blankly at each other ; Jim was the first to 
partiaUy recover from the actual tezror which this exhibition of down- 
right terrible anger, witnessed for the first time, had inspired him 
with. 

'* What shaU we do, Bobert?" he asked. 

'' I don't know," replied Bobert ; '' I suppose there is nothing to 
be done now ; we have done too much akeady ; my [father is not at 
home, either, and I am afraid to meet that man alone. Did you see 
how he looked at me?" 

'' Did I ? I thought his eyes woidd bum through you." 

*' Ugh ! Him damn mad," repeated Indian Dick ; '' give Indian 
the dollar." 

Bobert handed him a doUar, glad to get rid of him, and Dick 
hurried off to get satisfactorily drunk. 

'' My father will be terribly annoyed with us, Jim," said Robert. 

'' I'm afraid so," replied the other ; " and that frets me more than 
anything else; who would have thought that the old fellow would 
get so mad at a joke ? Well, he deserved what he got for the way he 
has been speaking of us, and tormenting your father all the time. If 
I was the doctor, I would have turned him out of the house long 
ago." 

When the boys reached the cottage, which they did not do for 
several hours, they skirmished around it for a long time, and then 
cautiously entered at the rear. But William McGregor was not there ; 
from the woods he had gone direct to the hotel, and sent a man for 
his baggage, giving him a letter for Doctor McGregor, to b^Jhanded 

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66 Dead Broke. 

to the latter on liis amyal home. Eariy the next morning the out- 
witted miser was on his way to New York. 

It would have been an easy matter for Bobert to have thrown this 
letter into the fire, and given his own version of the affair ; but so 
mean a thought never entered his mind ; on the contrary, he deter- 
mined to hand it himself to his father, Jim insisting on being present 
to bear his part of the blame. 

Doctor McQregor was greatly agitated when he read this letter, it 
was couched in such bitter, cutting, insulting language, that it lessened 
in a degree the fault of the boys ^ his eyes. After all, what was it 
but a foolish boy's trick : for at the time neither Bobert nor Jim was 
much more than thirteen years of age. Nevertheless, he was seriously 
angry with them, and reproved them severely, while he could not but 
admire the way each strove to take the greater portion of the blame 
upon himself. 

" It was all my fault," said Jim, " I proposed it to Robert.'' 

" Jim never would have gone on with it, only for me,'* said Bobert ; 
" and, father, neither of us saw the harm of it until it was done." 

" I believe you, Robert," replied the doctor, '* but, my son, yours 
has been by far the greatest fault, for you oonmiitted a breach of 
hospitality, and insulted a near relative. Now, go away, and let me 
consider this matter over." 

The next day he called Robert into his study, and dictated an 
ai|ology, which he enclosed to his brother, in a letter of his own ; but 
ihe latter was returned unopened, and from that time all intercourse 
between those ill-matched brothers ceased, a fact which could not have 
fretted Doctor McGregor much, although he doubtless wished that the 
estrangement had taken place in some less objectionable way. 

To Jim's great delight, he found himself as welcome a visitor to 
the cottage, and as great a favourite with its owner as ever ; but he 
never met Indian Dick without calling up to mind the look which 
Robert's imde had given his nephew in the woods, and the recollection 
of the incidents of that day, so funny in anticipation, never brought 
a smile to the faces of the principal actors, and aU reference to the 
subject was studiously avoided. 

In long years afterwards, when least expected, it was brought to 
Robert's mind with painful and vivid distinctness. 



CHAPTER IV. 

PABTINGS. 

It was one of those delicious days in the American autumn, so 
bright and exhilarating, so fragrant with ibalmy air, so beautiful in 
the dear heavens above, and in the variegated foliage b^eneath. that 

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Dead Broke. 67 

the mere consciousness of life seems happiness enougli. It was the 
morning of such a day when James Allen entered the room where Dr. 
McGregor and his son were at breakfast. James was dressed in his 
holiday clothes, his face was all aglow with excitement, and the un- 
manageable hair showed that all that could be done to subdue it had 
been done. 

" What's up, James ?" sud the doctor ; — " going to be married ?" 

" No, sir ; but my father is going to send me to New York, to learn 
the trade of a machinest." 

" I am very glad to hear it," said the doctor ; '* sit down, James, 
and tell us all about it, while you take a cup of tea." 

But Jim was too excited to eat or drink anything ; however, he 
sat down and entered into the explanation the doctor asked for, while 
Robert listened, as the saying is, '' with both eyes and ears." 

" I never spoke of it to father, though I often told you, Bobert, I 
would be a machinest one of these days," said James, laughing. *' I 
had just completed a nice piece of work, and father said to me : ' Jim, 
I can't teach you any more ; you must go where you can learn to be a 
better tradesman than your father ;' so at home, last night, mother and 
he settled that I should go to New York. I'm so glad that I never 
teased father about going, though I longed to do so so much ; and 
now it has all come from himself." 

" You seem pretty glad to be leaving us, Jim f " said Bobert in a 
somewhat reproachful tone. 

'* No," repHed the other, in a cheerful voice. '* Sorry enough for 
home ; but it is about coming back a good tradesman that I am thinking. 
You see, sir," he continued, turning to the doctor, '' there are so many 
improvements going on in machineiy that there are branches now in 
the blacksmith's trade that were not known when my father learned 
it, and there would be no sense in remaining a common blacksmith, 
when one can be something much better." 

" Just so," said the doctor. 

'• When do you go, Jim ?" asked Bobert ; — " in a month ?" 

'' In a month !" exclaimed James. '' No, in three days ; and now 
finish your breakfast, Bobert, and come out ; we must spend the day 
together, in rambling over old haunts." 

''If you do not intend to return before evening, bring a lunch 
with you," said the doctor ; — " and mind, James, you will take supper 
with us." 

In a short time both young friends were out of the house. They 
were at that happy period of life when the dreams of boyhood still 
mingle with the hopes, ambitions, and desires of young manhood, and 
their near parting made them more fully conscious of the change that 
had taken place in themselves — ^that they were no longer boys. The 
sorrow, too, at parting with his friend, which quickly succeeded James' 

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68 Dead Broke. 

first burst of joyous excitement^ made liim more capable of sympathis- 
ing witb the more romantic nature of the former. And in this mood, 
the familiar scenes around him seemed to wear a new beauty in his 



Leaving the town behind them, they entered the woods by the wdl- 
beaten path. The fall frosc had changed the uniform green of the 
summer foliage into an endless variety of hues — ^h^ra was the gorgeous 
sumach with its blood-coloured leaves, the delicate pink and pale gold 
of the maple, the quivering, yellow leaf of the poplar ; nay, a thousand 
varieties of autumn shades, contrasting wiUi the green foliage of tree 
i^nd shrub that still retained their summer dress, while the leaves 
already fallen and browned rustled along the path, telling that all this 
beauty was but the premonition of decay. 

" We will keep on to Prince Qharles' tree, Robert," said James. 

This was a magnificent elm-tree which Bobert had named after the 
celebrated oak in England, within whose branches, tradition says, that 
Gharles the Second once found refuge. YeatoB before, when quite 
little fellows, Bobort and James had grubbed and cleared the ground, 
sowing grass-seed, so that there was now a nice green sward of tame 
grass beneath. Beneath this tree— in whose bark the irrepressible 
American jack-knife had cut in several places the names of *' Bobert 
McGregor," ''James Allen," and '' Lucy Evans "—the young men 
sat down to talk ovei^ the intended departure of James. They scarcely 
had done so, when several squirrels came running down the tree, and 
coming quite dose, raised themselves on their hind legs, their bushy 
tails resting on their backs, while their brown eyes watched eagerly 
for recognition. This was a chosen spot for lunching in the woods, 
and the habit made the squirrels quite tame, so that they had come to 
look upon the fragments as their just perquisites. 

<' Here are our little friends, Jim," said Bobert, '' come to say to 
you good-bye." Then the two friends talked long and earnestly of the 
future. 

*' You are making the first break, Jim," said Bobert; '' and who 
knows where or to what it may lead ? at all events, I feel that the old 
days are over." 

'' But not the old friendship, Bobert," replied Jim. '' As you say, 
old days or young da3rs, whichever you may wish to call them, are 
gone by ; we are no longer boys. But give me your hand, old fellow ; 
and now, Bobert, let us pledge each other that through life we will 
always remain the same warm, true, loving friends that we have 
been." 

''To the death," replied Bobert, as his eyes filled with tears. 
" And here is the seal to the contract," he continuedi as he Idssed 
James' cheek. 

" And mine," said James, peiforming the same oeremoinv j 

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Dead Broke. 69 

How well this pledge waa kept will be seen hereafter. 
The evening was dosing in when the friends returned to the house ; 
and three days afterwards, James Allen was on his way to New York. 
Soon a letter came, announcing his safe airivaly and tiien Bobert and 
he became regular correspondents. He also wrote frequently to his 
father, who always showed (with great pride) his son's letters to Doctor 
McGregor. 

It had been settled before he left that he waa to remain away for 
two years, and when six months of the time had expired, a letter to 
his father came from James' boss, speaking in the highest terms of 
his good conduct and smartness. '' I will send you back," the letter 
concluded, " as good a mechanic as ever went West.^' 

But bdfore a year had fully gone by, James was recalled home on 
account of the dangerous illness of his mother, and to his great grief 
azriyed too late, she having died before his arrival. 

The death of his wife was a great shock to the sturdy blacksmith. 
The strong frame and hearty laugh that had so long and so well with- 
stood the assaults of time, sorrow conquered with one blow. Who 
could have thought there was so gentle and loving a heart beneath 
that rough exterior? 

James, who had made up his mind on no account to leave his father 
at this time, did almost all the work in the shop ; and for months after 
his wife's death, it was pitiful to see the old man, on his return to his 
home in the evening, looking around unf amiliarly, yet with the loneli- 
ness death had brought to it. 

« Oan't you do anything for my father, doctor?" said James Allen 
to Doctor McGregor ; '' he mopes about all day, and he scarcely takes 
any sleep ; he does not go to bed till near morning, thinking, I know, 
of poor mother. Oh ! he's so changed, doctor. Is there no medicine 
that would do him good ?" 

'' I have no faith in medicine, James, in his case," replied the 
doctor, " but much in kind attention and love. I know, my good boy, 
you are doing and will do all you can to help him and cheer him. 
Try and get him to work, and back to his old habits as much as 
possible. I will see him as often as I can, as a friend, and do my best 
to cheer him ; poor fellow I did not know that he was a man of such 
deep feeling ; but we are all mysteries to each other, yes, even to our- 
selves, I believe." 

'< I miss my Martha, doctor," said John Allen, in a subsequent 
conversation with Doctor McGregor, " more and more every day ; she 
was no great talker for a woman, but for thirty years she never failed 
to meet me, when I returned home from the shop, with a pleasant 
smile and a loving word." 

Two or three months after his wife's death, John Allen spoke to 
his son about the latter's returning to New York, but James would 

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7o Dead Broke, 

not hear of it. ''He had learned as much of his trade as he 
needed/' he said. He now seemed as anxious to stop at home as he 
was before to leave, and his father, guessing the cause, endeavoured 
to respond to his son's filial affection by wrestling with his grief and 
trying to be himself again ; but it was only acting, after alL He 
worked in the shop, but the hearty laugh that used to accompany the 
zing of the hammer was never heard : to him that ring had lost its 
music. Amid the flying sparks he saw an empty seat, a lonely home, 
and the six o'clock bell, once so welcome and cheeiy in its tones, 
sounded more like a dismal knell. 

And so, when the spring had passed and come again, the old man, 
without any positive sickness, took to his bed, turned his face to the 
wall, and followed his wife. The day before his death he called James 
to his bedside. " I will never rise, James," he said, " from this bed, 
and it is all the better, my boy. When our work is done here, God 
calls us. I have had a happy life, and I am thankful for it. The 
neighbours are so good and attentive, Jim, that they leave us seldom 
alone; but we are so now; kneel down, Jim, until you get your 
father's blessing. I am, to be sure, but an ignorant man, but it seems 
to me a deal of knowledge comes to one when dying. I know, my 
boy, that the blessing I give you now will follow you through life. I 
dreamed last night, Jim, that your mother said to me : ' Bless our 
child,' Was it a dream? Who knows?'* 

While speaking he had, without any seeming effort, raised himself 
up in bed, and now, with hands extended over the bowed head of his 
sobbing child, he said, in slow, solemn tones : '' I bless you, God bless 
you, and He will." 

Happy is it for the child who thus receives a dying parent's bless* 
ing, and deserves it. 

After his father's death, James received a most warm invitation 

from Doctor McGregor, to take up his residence at the cottage, until 

he had settled on his future course, and to this invitation Bobert'a 

entreaties were added, but he could not be induced to leave the house 

that had been his home for so many years. 

"Thank you all the same, Robert," he said; '*you and your 
father must not be vexed at my refusal ; but I will stop in my father's 
house until I leave it for ever. To leave it right off would look like 
turning my back upon it, and the past ; and I don't want to do that." 

This was in the year of 1848 ; and a few weeks after John Allen's 
death, the whole country became electrified at the news of rich 
gold discoveries in California. Every mail brought to the town of 

P new and wonderful stories, and confirmation of former ones. 

The truth was, indeed, wonderful enough, but exaggeration added 
such a colouring to it, that people got crazy in thinking of it. Follow- 
ing in hot haste, the news of the discovery of the gold, camQ reports 

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Dead Broke* yx 

from ev^rj aide of partiee organising and starting for the gold-fields 
— some by sea, and others bj the overland route. 

One of such an active, energetic temperament as James Allen 
could not escape the gold fever. Here was a field of adventure, a 
Toad to fortune open to him. But how to get there was the difficulty. 
His father had never laid up any money, and after selling out his good- 
will in the shop, paying some small debts, and collecting those due, 
James found himself master of about one himdred dollars, quite suffi« 
dent to bring him to New York, where he intended to go to finish 
himself as a machinist. He would require at least three hundred 
dollars to enable him to join any one of the nimierous^parties now 
daily preparing to set off for the land of promise by the overland route. 
Of so self-reliant and independent a nature, the thought of getting a 
pecuniary loan from Doctor McGregor or Bobert never for a moment 
oocurred to him, and when, with a flushed face and excited manner, 
he read to the latter some late accounts of the further discoveries of 
gold, and throwing down the paper, lamented his inability to make 
one of a party setting out on the 1st of the following month from St. 
Louis, he was totally unprepared for the offer which his expressed de- 
sire naturally led to. 

'' I shall be more than sorry, James," said Bobert, '' that we shall 
be parted ; Gk>d knows for how long, maybe for ever — for years, at all 
events ; and but that I cannot leave my father, I would go with you ; 
not that I care for tiiis yellow dross, that is setting all you fellows 
mad ; but if you have your heart set upon going, I see nothing to pre- 
vent you. You say you require but two hundred dollars ; I will give 
that sum ; lend it to you, if your pride will not let you take a gift 
from your friend." 

While Eobert was speaking, James' eyes were opening wider 
and wider ; but when the former concluded by offering the required 
sum, young Allen's face flushed up to the roots of his red hair. " I 
hope, Eobert," he gasped, ** you don't think that " 

•* Oh, no, I don't," said Eobert, interrupting him and laughing. 
" Pray, James, don't get up on your stilts. Very fortunate it is that 
you were such a numbskuU, that an idea of my giving you the money 
never oocurred to you ; if it had, you would never have confided your 
wish to me — oh, you have a fine idea of what friendship means — ^but 
would have gone off to New York and hammered away at your anvil, to 
make this sum, fretting and fuming all the time lest the gold should 
be picked up before you could get your share. Ah, James, how soon 
you have forgotten, and broken, indeed, in spirit, our compact made 
under Prince Oharlie^s tree." 

*'I have not forgotten it, Robert,'* said James, grasping the other's 
hand, ''but " 

" Oh, hang your buts." 

Vol. X^ No. 104. Digitized by VjOOQIc 



7^ 



Dead Broke. 



** Bobert, I will not take this money from you ; — ^yon will have to 
ask your father for it.*' 

" Well, that's not much of an undertaking. Come up to-night, and 
we will haye his opinion on your proposed expedition — mind, the money 
question is settled. Should you go, James, months must elapse, I sup* 
pose, ere we can hear from you ?" 

<' You will never hear from me, Bobert, unless I am suocessfuL" 

" What do you mean ?" 

" Don't think," James replied, '' that I haye been so long in your 
company. Master Bobert, without being inoculated with some of your 
romance. I shaU never return from California, unless as a successful 
man, and the first news you will have of me will be from myself." 

" But, James, think of the anxiety of your friends ; — will you be 
treating them generously P" 

''Yes," said James; ''I have friends, just two, yourself and 
your father; but, Bobert, though I have no excuse to offer, let me 
have my little bit of romance. Our meeting, for I know I will return, 
will be all the pleasanter for it ; and you must many Lucy Evans, so 
as not to be lonely while I am away." 

It was now Bobert's turn to blush. " I have not seen Lucy for six 
months," he said ; " perhaps if you were to tell her of your romantic 
plan of running o£P to Calif omia, and leaving no trace by which to 
find you out, she might be so taken with it as to promise to wait for 
you until yourself or your ghost came back." 

" You know, Bobert, I withdrew my pretensions long ago, indeed 
ever since I burned my fingers, shoeing her sled, for you and her to 
ride on. I'm not going to bum my fingers any moro." 

Both laughed at those remembrances ; then Bobert said : " Well, 
James, I shall expect you at the cottage this evening. You must put 
that stuff of not writing to us out of your head." But James did not ; 
on this point he had made up his mind from the first Doctor Mc(}regor 
highly approved of his going, and as it was fixed that Bobert was to 
accompany him as far as St. Louis, the two left for that city in time 
for James to get his outfit, and make all necessary preparations to be 
ready to start with the expedition leaving on the 1st of the month. 
When it did leave, Bobert, on horseback, accompanied the party for 
the first day's march, and was glad to see that even in that idiort time 
the leader had recognised James' energy and smartness, and appointed 
him the following morning to a minor command in the motly army of 
adventurers. 

Bemoved some distance from the parly, James and Robert bid each 
other fareweU, and it is no shame to their young manhood to confess 
that they cried in each other's arms ; then Bobert placed a rich gold 
chain, with a watch attached, round Jim's neck. " It is a present from 
my father, James," he said. 



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Vita Eucharislica. 73 

'< I most hide it underneath my vest, or they will say that I am 
a big-bug already/' replied James, as his hand shook with the 
agitation he was endeavouring to command* 

'^ My father told you, James, to dispose of it if you found it neces- 
sary ; it is handier to carry than money. They are calling you. 
James, promise to write." 

'' I promise, Bobert, to return," replied James, wringing his friend's 
hand. And so they parted. How many years were to elapse before 
they met again, and then under what different droumstances ! 

(lb U eorUinu&d.) 



VITA EUOHAEISTICA. 

BT BISTBB XABT AONBS. 



G 



OD, and He only, knoweth the raptures which dilate 
A soul with whom her Saviour becomes incorporate : 
Her joy with awe deep-mingled, to feel her God so near, 
Her hushed and reverent stillness, his lightest word to hear. 



Por her time's countless pulse-beats now culminate in one, 
The Infinite is bounded, Omnix>otence outdone ! 
;3he draws breath for a moment in Gk)d's eternity- 
She measures for an instant his love's immensity. 

The harping of heaven's harpers grows audible and near^ 
Christ's touch is on her shoulder, his voice is in her ear ; 
Too brief the fleeting Presence, the bliss without alloy ! 
Earth-life steps in between her and heaven's eternal joy. 

But the grace that Presence bringeth goes not so quickly past ; 
A sacramental shadow over the day is cast — 
A shadow ever deep'ning, with choicest blessings rife, 
Tingeing with golden glory the conmionness of life — 

Lighting with tender meaning the mysteries of pain, 
Crowning the weary labour, done seemingly in vain ; 
Smoothing the roughened places of life's unequal road, 
Guarding the soul securely and peacefully for God* 

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( 74 ) 



THE REV. JOHN THAYER .♦ 

A LniK BET^^'SEIf IRKLAND AXD A SAINT JUST CAHOfflSED. 
BT THE BEY. T. E, BBIDOETT, 0.S8.B. 

N December 8th, 1880, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of 
the Blessed Yirgin Mary, the Sovereign Pontiff canonised, or 
enrolled in the catalogue of the Church's saints, the Blessed Benedict 
Joseph Labre, who died in Rome, in the year 1783. I have no inten- 
tion of speaking to-night of this great servant of Ood, but I am going 
to teU you of a link which connects him with the good city of Limerick, 
and, indeed, with yourselves. You all know Mr. Walsh, who has been 
for so many years Superior of the Christian Brothers in this city. 
Yery many of you owe your Christian education to him directly or 
indirectly. Well, Mr. Walsh told me, the other day, that he was 
baptised by the Rev. John Thayer, and the Rev. John Thayer 
was converted to the Catholic Faith in Rome, on the occasion 
of the death of this very Benedict Joseph Labre, and by the 
mirades that then took place. Moreover, the Rev. John Thayer 
laboured in Limerick for several years, and is buried in Limerick. I 
am going to tell you, then, about the Rev. John Thayer, and you will 
see, by what I have to say, that the influence of the sanctity of Blessed 
Benedict Joseph extended many years since to the banks of the 
Shannon, as it will continue to extend henceforth from pole to pole. 

I cannot narrate to you the life of Mr. Thayer, for I do not know 
that it has ever been written. I possess, however, a small pamphlet, 
in which Mr. Thayer gives an account of his own conversion ; and I 
have gathered tbgether a few facts which have, I believe, never been 
printed regarding his last years in Limerick. 

Mr. Thayer was a native of Boston, in the State of Massachusets. 
*' I was bom," he says, " of a family in easy circumstances. I was 
brought up there in the Protestant religion, the only prevailing, and 
almost only known in New England." I do not know the year of his 
birth, but he was probably two or three-and-twenty years old when 
the American colonies declared their Independence of England, on the 
4th of July, 1776. Now, previously to that event, it was forbidden to 

* Though some changet of form were kindlj entrusted to our discretioD, we prefer 
the ^Misrima tferba of a lecture recentlj addressed to the Archconfraternity of the 
Holy Family in the Church of the fiederaptorlst Fathers, Limerick. Bohrbacher, in 
the twenty -eighth yolume of his great *' Histoire Uniyerselle de TBglise Catholique," 
deTotes sereral pages to Bfr. Thayer's conrersion, but leares him at the Council of 
Baltimore, in 1791* The importance thus ascribed to him increases our surprise at the 
interesting disooTery made in this paper that the labours of so many of his last yeara 
were giren to Limerick.— Bd. I. M^ r^r^r^^]r> 

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The Rev. John Thayer. 75 

any Oatholio priest, under the penalty of death, to enter any of the 
States, except Maryland and Pennsylvania; and even lay Catholics 
were barely tolerated, and suffered the most grievous penalties. This 
was changed when the colonies had thrown off iheir connection with 
£ngland. 

Shortly after that event, Dr. Carroll, the first bishop of the United 
States, visited Boston, in 1791, when Mr. Thayer had become the 
first Catholic pastor of his native town. '' It is wonderful," wrote 
Dr. Carroll to a friend, *' to tell what great civilities have been done 
to me in this town, where, a few years ago, a popish priest was thought 
to be the greatest monster in the creation. Many here, even of their 
principal people, have acknowledged to me that they would have 
CTOseed to the opposite side of the street rather than meet a Eoman 
Catholic some time ago. The horror which was associated with the 
idea of a papist is incredible ; and the scandalous misrepresentations 
by their ministers increased the horror every Sunday." In this place, 
and in this state of things Mr. Thayer was brought up. '' At the oon- 
duaion of my studies," he writes, *' I was made a minister af the 
Puritan sect, and exercised my functions for two years, applying my- 
self to the study of the holy Scriptures and to preaching. In the mean- 
time, I felt a secret inclination to travel ; I nourished the desire, and 
learned a resolution of passing into Europe, to learn the languages 
which are most in use, and to acquire a knowledge of the constitution 
of states, of the manners, customs, laws and government of the 
principal nations, in order to acquire, by this political knowledge, a 
greater consequence in my own country, and thus to become more use- 
ful to it. Such were my human views without the least suspicion of 
the secret designs ^of Providence, which was preparing for me more 
precious advantages. 

«< I embarked for Europe, and arrived in France, at the end of the 
year 1781. I remained there ten months, totally taken up in studying 
the language, in reading the best authors, and instructing myself in 
the principles of the Government. I was there attacked with a fit of 
illness, and as I feared it would be attended with serious consequences, 
my first concern was to forbid that any Catholic priest should be suf- 
fered to come near me, such was my attachment to my own sect. 

'' After my recovery I spent three months in England, attentive, as 
in France, in observing the manners and customs of the countiy. I 
was desired to preach; I complied; but it being observed that my 
doctrine did not agree with that of the persons before whom I spoke, 
I replied that I had taken it from the Gospel. . . . 

'' I returned to France with an intention of passing from thence to 
Some, constantly bent on the same pursidts ; and, as it may easily be 
imagined, strongly prejudiced both against the nation and religion of 
that country, which had been represented to me in the moBtodious 



76 The Rev. John Thayer. 

colours. However, during my stay in France, I had formed a leesun* 
favourable idea of the Catholic religion, and my intercourse with the 
Italians contributed also to remove my prejudices against them." He 
then relates the courteous reception he met^from all classes of persons 
everywhere. 

After describing his course of life and his studies, Mr. Thayer goes 
on to say : " From time to time the Catholic religion returned to my 
mind ; and although it made no part of my plan of studies, I was de- 
sirous, nevertheless, of instructing myself thoroughly in all its princi- 
ples, during my stay in the city : for the same reason that I should 
have wished to know the religion of Mahomet, had I been at Constan- 
tinople. I was far from suspecting that my own was false, or at least 
from thinking of embracing another." I must remind you that at the 
period of Mr. Thayer's visit to Europe, i.e. in the year 1781, what was 
called philosophy was everywhere the fashion among educated people. 
Voltaire and Eousseau had just died, and their writings in France, like 
those of Hume and (Hbbon in England, had midermined all Christian 
faith. At the same time those who wished to be thought cultured and 
philosophical prided themselves, above all things, on being candid and 
impartial. Mr. Thayer tells us how he boasted that in pursuing his 
inquiries he was determined not to be converted, though resolved to 
ascertain the truth, for he could not '' entertain a prejudice willingly 
even against the devil." He adds that he was very much startled 
when a priest, to whom he applied for information, told him he must 
say the Lord's Prayer for light. Fortunately for himself he obeyed, 
for Ood seldom gives light except to those who pray for it. " Ask and 
ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened 
to you." It would take me too long to relate how Mr. Thayer's prejudices 
were gradually removed. Even when he came to see that his own sect 
was in the wrong, and to suspect that Catholics were right, he "re- 
solved, whatever proof was brought against him, not to make his ab- 
juration at Home, for fear of taking a precipitate step. But Provi- 
dence," he says, " ever watchful over me, did not suffer these delays, 
which might have been fatal, but ordered various events which 
hastened my conversion." The first of these was that he read a book 
about the Guardian Angels, which deeply impressed him and made him 
careful to avoid sin ; the second was the death of Benedict Joseph Labre. 
Though I cannot now relate the saint's history, I will just mention 
that he was a young Frenchman, well educated, who by a very special 
inspiration of God, had left his family and country, and in a spirit of 
penance, adopted the life of a pilgrim and a mendicant, practising the 
most wonderful austerities. For some years he had lived in Bome, 
and by his wonderful piety had become known to many as ** the holy 
beggar." At his death, which took place on the Wednesday in Holy 
"Week, 1783, on the 1 6th April, a sudden and unaccountable rumour 



The Rev. John Thayer. 77 

spread tlirougli all Borne that a saint was dead, and both before and 
after his funeral for many weeks the chnroh where his body was de- 
poetted was so thronged with visitors that the tomb had to be constantly 
goarded by soldiers. In four months 80,000 small pieces of his dress, 
or rather rags, had been distributed as relics, and his fame was spread 
over Europe and even into China. Great numbers of miracles took 
place on using these relics and invoking his intercession. 

Well, these things took place just when Mr. Thayer was staying 
in Borne, and his mind growing disposed towards the Catholic faith. 
But at first, instead of helping they retarded his conversion ; for the 
report that a pilgrim and a beggar was working miracles aroused all 
his Protestant prejudices. Poverty and miracles are two things which 
most Protestants hate : for miracles prove the greatness of God, and 
poverty shows the nothingness of the world. Voluntary poverty has 
always been held in great esteem by the Church, not only as a practice 
of mortification, but because he who embraces it thereby proves that 
he understands the^ true greatness and riches of man to consist in 
nothing external. He exdaims, like St. Francis : '' My God and my 
an." But I must let you hear Mr. Thayer himself speak. " Such 
was my situation, when the death of Yenerable Labre, and the miracles 
which were said to have been obtained through his intercession, began 
to make a noise at Rome, and to become the subject of every conver- 
sation. Notwithstanding the instructions which I had received, and 
the lights which I had acquired, I was no ways disposed to credit the 
public reports concerning this truly extraordinary person. Of all my 
prejudices against Catholics the deepest rooted was a formal disbelief 
of tiie miraculous facts which are said to have happened among them. 
I had been brought up in this persuasion, common to all Protestants, 
who never having been able to obtain the gift of miracles, like the fox 
in the fable, disdain it, and deny its existence.* Not content with 
denying those which were published at that time, I made them the 
subject of my raillery, and in the coffee-houses passed some very un- 
becoming jests on the servant of God, with whose poverty and unclean- 
liness I was shocked ; and on this head I went farther than any even of 
my Protestant friends. However, the nimiber and weight of the 
evidences increasing daily, I thought it was my duty to examine the 
matter myself. I frequently conversed with the confessor of the 
deceased, from whom I learned a part of his life. I visited four 
persons who were said to have been miraculously cured : I was con- 
vinced by my own eyes of the state in which they then were. I 
questioned them concerning the state in which they had been ; I in- 

* The fox, according to the fable alluded to by Mr. Thayer, lost his tail, where- 
upon he tried to get up an opinion that foxes are handsomer without tails. Protes- 
tants haTe lost the gift of miracles, and they ha?e in consequence got up the theory 

that a religion is more solid and spiritual that lays no claim to such gifts, r^ ^^^\^ 

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78 The Rev. John Thayer. 

f onned myself of the nature and continuance of the illness with whick 
they had been attacked, and the circumstances of their cure, which had 
been operated in an instant I collected the evidences of those to whom 
they were known, and after all these infonnations, made with the 
greatest care, I was fully convinced that the reality of each one of 
these miracles was at least as well proved as the most authentic facts.'' 
. • • He enters into some details, and continues: *' Persuaded that 
there was something supernatural in these cures, I could not refrain 
from turning my thoughts on myself, and from considering the risk 
I ran by remaining in my own sect. These reflections involved me in 
much perplexity ; I can hardly express the violent state in which I 
then was. Truth appeared to me on every side ; but it was combated 
by all the prejudices which I had sucked in from my infancy. I felt 
all the force of the arguments which Catholics oppose to the Protestant 
doctrine, but I had not the courage to yield. I clearly saw that the 
Church of Eome is established on innumerable and unanswerable 
proofs, and that her replies to the reproaches of Protestants are 
solid and satisfactory ; but I must abjure errors in which I had been 
brought up, and which I had preached to others. I was a minister in 
my own sect, and I must renounce my state and fortime. I was 
tenderly attached to my f suoiily, and I must incur their indignation. 
Interests so dear kept me back. In a word, my understanding was 
convinced, but my heart was not changed. 

^'I was in these circumstances, fluctuating and undetermined, when 
a little book* was put into my hands. The author gives an historical 
account of his conversion, and briefly discusses the points which are 
controverted between Catholics and Protestants. He places in the be- 
ginning the following prayer, which was communicated to him by a 
Catholic, to invoke the light of the Holy Ghost, and which the reader 
perhaps will not be sorry to see : — 

'' ' God of goodness, almighty and eternal Father of mercies, 
Saviour of mankind ! I humbly beseech Thee, by thy sovereign good- 
ness, to enlighten my mind and to touch my heart, in order that, by 
means of true faith, true hope, and true charity, I may live and die in 
the true religion of Jesus Christ. I am certain that, as there is but 
one God, there can only be one faith, only one religion, only one way 
of salvation, and that all the ways opposed to this one can only lead 
to perdition. It is this faith, my God, that I am seeking with eager* 
ness, in order to embrace it and to gain my salvation. I protest, then, 
before thy divine majesty, and I swear by all thy divine attributes, 
that I will follow that religion which Thou wilt show me to be true^ 
and that I will abandon, whatever it may cost me, that in which I shall 
discover errors and falsehood. It is true I do not deserve this favour, 
on account of the greatness of my sins, for which I feel a profound 
* Manifeito di un Cavaliere CrUtiano eonvertito alia Religume (kdtolica^ \ 

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The Rev. John Thayer, 79 

sorrow because they ofEend a Gkxl so good, so great, so holy, so worthy 
of being loved. But what I do not deserve I hope to obtain of your 
infinite mercy, and I implore you to grant it to me, through the merits 
of the Precious Blood, which was shed for us poor sinners by thine 
only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.', 

" I cast my eyes over this prayer," continues Mr. Thayer, *' but 
could not prevail on myself to say it. I wished to be enlightened, yet 
feared beini^ too much so. My temporal interest and a thousand other 
motives crowded upon my mind, and coimterbalanced the salutary 
impressions of grace. At length the interest of eternal salvation pre- 
vailed ; I threw myself on my knees ; I excited myself to say the 
prayer with the greatest sincerity I was capable of ; and the violent 
agitation of my soul, with the conflicts it had sustained, drew from me 
an abundance of tears. I then began to read the book, which is a 
short exposition of the pnncipal proofs which establish the truth of 
the Catholic religion. 

" The whole of those different proofs which till then I had only 
viewed separately — so many rays of light, collected, as it were, into 
one centre, made a lively impression on my mind. Besides, I did 
not make Uie same resistance as formerly to divine grace. I had 
not entirely finished the book, when I exclaimed : ' My GK>d, I 
promise to become a Catholic' The same day I declared my inten- 
tion to the family with which I lodged. It gave them joy, for they 
were truly pious. I went in the evening to the coffee-house, where I 
imparted my change to all my Protestant friends, and tp repair as 
much as I could the scandal which I had given, I defended the sanctity 
of venerable Labre, and declared that I had more proof of the truth 
of his miracles than I would reqiiire for any fact whatever. More- 
over, not to be ashamed of Jesus Christ, I united a great number of 
friends to be witnesses of my abjuration. Many lamented my weak- 
ness, others made a jest of it, but God who called me to the faith 
supported me, and I have a firm confidence that He will support me 
to my last brefith." Such is in substance the history of Mr. Thayer's 
conversion ; but I must now pass rapidly on. He was received into 
the Church on May 25th, 1783. He then returned to France, entered 
a seminary, made his ecclesiastical studies, and was ordained priest in 
1787. He was prevailed on to write the history of his conversion, 
which he did, both in French and English, and the pamphlet was 
translated into many languages. It went through a great nimiber of 
editions in English, both in Eogland and in Ireland. The copy from 
which I have been reading to you was published in Dublin in 1809, 
and belongs to the Kev. Br. Downes of Kilmallock, whose sister made 
her first confession to Father Thayer, in Limerick. In the pamphlet 
written either before or just after his ordination, Mr. Thayer says : 
'< This is the only desire of my heart, to extend, as much afi^lies in mv 



8o The Rev. John Thayer. 

power, the dominion of the true faith, which is now my joy and my 
comfort. I ambition nothing more; for this purpose I desire to 
retom to my country, in hopes, notwithstanding my unworthiness, to 
be the instrument of the conversion of my countrymen ; and such is 
my couTiotion of the truth of the Roman Catholic Church, and my 
gratitude for the signal grace of being called to the true faith, that I 
would willingly seal it with my blood if Gk>d would grant me this 
favour, and I doubt not but He would enable me to do it." When 
Mr. Thayer wrote this, there were throughout the whole United States 
only about 25,000 Catholics, and twenly-four priests, and they had as 
yet no bishop, but were governed by a Prefect- Apostolic. It is pro- 
bable that Mr. Thayer waited for the appointment of a bishop, which 
took place in 1790, for in that year he went to America. In the 
meantime he had been labouring in the poorest part of London, using 
an old factory as his chapel, and had converted several Protestants. 

In America he took part in the first national Synod of Baltimore, 
in 1791 ; he laboured hard ; in several places built churches and 
schools, and engaged in very successful controversies with the Pro- 
testant ministers of Boston, to whom he had once belonged. 

Why or when he left America I do not know, nor when or how he 
came to Ireland. He was certainly in Dublin in the beginning of 
1809, and I am told that he came to Limerick in 1812. He had then 
been twenly-five years a priest, and his first fervour had certainly not 
relaxed. About fifteen years ago I was told by a very old priest, the 
Rev. Patrick Benson of Feenagh, that he well remembered being 
taught his catechism by Father Thayer, and how zealous Father 
Thayer was in hearing the confessions of the poor. I am sony I 
made no further inquiries at that time, when old people were alive 
who could have told me many details. My principal informants are 
the Kev. Dr. Downes, and Mr. Hartney of Tralee, whose father was 
Mr. Thayer's intimate friend. Mr. Thayer must have been brought to 
Limerick by the Most Hev. Dr. Toung, who was then bishop, and he 
was the friend of the well-remembered Father Pat Hogan of St 
Michaers. 

Father Thayer had no charge, as parish priest or curate, but he 
said Mass and htord confessions in St. Michael's and St. John's, and 
often preached. His sermons were principally controversial; and in 
those days such sermons were much needed, for very many people 
were giving up their faith, being wearied out with persecution or 
obscurity ; for you must remember that this was long before Catholic 
Emancipation. 

Even in the early days of his conversion he found great joy 
in those very things which had been his chief difficulties. He had 
thought that it was idolatry to honour and invoke the Blessed' Virgin ; 
and even when his mind had become convinced thati^ihis was a 

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The Rev. John Thayer. 8i 

grierooB mistake, his imagination was haunted by wliat lie calls the 
^osts of his former prejudices. But this soon passed away, and, in 
1787, he wrote: "I endeayoured to join in erery institution which 
tends to the honour of the Blessed Virgin, and study as much as can 
depend on me to extend the devotion to this dear Mother of Ood." 

" The mystery of the Holy Eucharist, which appeared to me so 
incredible, is become an ever-flowing source of spiritual delight. Con- 
fession, which I had considered as an insupportable yoke, seems 
infinit^y sweet, by the tranquillity whidi it produces in the soul.'' 

His inanner of life in Limerick, in his old age, showed the truth of 
these professions. He used to say Mass daily in St. Michael's about 
eleven, o'dook, after hearing confessions from seven. He then took 
his one meal, which was both breakfast and dinner. He kept a 
perpetual fast, and never eat either meat or eggs. During his break- 
fast, one of the students from Park College used to read to him, by the 
bishop's leave, in order that he might lose no time. He would never 
sit near a fire nor allow one in his room. At night he used to take a 
little dry bread and one glass of wine ; he heard confessions almost 
all day, and when the churches were closed would continue to do 
so in certain houses, and especially in his own lodgings, which you 
may be interested to know were over the shop of Mr. Bourke the 
Glover's, in Patrick-street, and afterwards at Messrs. Eyan, Brothers, 
doth merchants, at the sign of the GK>lden Eagles, in the same 
street, opposite Ellen-street. 

When first he came to Limerick, confessions, except at Easter, were 
rare, but by his sermons he induced many to confess monthly, and some 
even much more frequently. He had a vast nimiber of penitents, and 
I have been told that they were nicknamed Thayerites by those who 
did not relish a piety superior to their own. His love for the poor 
was very great : he had learned this from Blessed Benedict Joseph. 
He had a private fortune when young, but he had so entirely spent it 
in good works and alms before his death, that Dr. Downes tells me 
that he sold his watch shortly before his death in order to relieve the 
poor. Mr. Hartney says that he left nothing to purchase his grave : 
and Mr. Hartney's father, out of reverence and charity, had his body 
placed in the vault of his imcle, Dr. M'Mahon, Bishop of Killaloe. 
This vault is in the Protestant churchyard in St. John's-square. His 
last residence was, as I have said, at Mr. Eyan's, and his last sickness 
was dropsy ; but even that did not interrupt his work of zeal ; he 
continued to hear confessions sitting in his bed, and was occupied 
thus, even on the very day of his death, which, according to one 
authority, was 15th February, 1815. 

You see, then, what is the influence of the saints. A Protestant 
paper said the other day that the life led by Blessed Benedict was 
of no earthly use to any living creature. From the history of Mr> 



82 Castles in the Fire. 

Thayer, you may see at least one proof of its use : it changed a 
vainglorious tourist into a zealous Catholic priest, who spent his 
life and fortune in instructing, elevating, and consoling the most 
ignorant and poor, whom the philosophers and men of science would 
have left to perish in their poverty and ignorance. Let us ask St. 
Benedict Joseph Labre by his prayers to raise up for us many more 
zealous priests like Father Thayer, and to take under his special pro- 
tection. Limerick, which already owns itself his debtor. 

If I may suggest one other practical reflection, it is the importance 
of prayer. If Mr. Thayer had not prayed as he did at the crisis of 
his conversion, he woidd probably have put it off to another time ; 
and had he done so, he would probably have died a Protestant, and 
with the additional guilt of having closed his eyes to a special light. 
Tou, dear brethren, have already the true faith; but prayer is equally 
necessary that you may follow its light There are moments of 
temptation when, if you do not pray, and pray earnestly, you will fall 
into grievous sin; and those sins may lead to eternal ruin. By 
prayer, Mr. Thayer gained a victory which was the beginning of a 
new life to him; so also one brave struggle, one earnest prayer, 
one victory achieved by the grace of Ood over human passion, may 
raise you to a higher level of thought, and feeling, and action, and 
be followed by a holy life and everlasting salvation. 



CASTLES IN THE FIEE. 

I am building aiiy castles— 
Air-castles in llie fire, 
As the changing fitful fiame 

Mounts higher, ever higher. 
Alas 1 they're only fancies — 

I'm living in a dream — 
But I watch the falling embers 
Through the bitter tears that stream. 

I am alone with my castles ; 

The dusk and gloom have come, 
The candles are not yet lighted. 

The children's voices are dumb— C^r^r^t^\r> 

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Castles in the Fire. 83 

They are softly nestling 

In the angels' holy care- 
Would I could sleep so peacefully, 

So soothed by the evening prayer ! 

I am gazing in the embers, 

I am tracing there my life ; 
Here stood I eager, longing, 

Impatient for the strife. 
My heart was hot and restless, 

There seemed so much to do ; 
The Lord had need of workers, 

To work for his kingdom true. 

There, see, the coals haye fallen ! 

They are only ashes gray ; 
So fell my heart's bright fancies. 

So died my dreams away. 
A whisper came to me softly, 

'' Thy desire I have behdd ; 
But sit thee down and wait for me, 

Like Bartimeus of eld." 

'Twas not the word I longed for. 

But I hnew the Voice Divine, 
So I'm trusting, hoping every day— 

Tm looking for a sign. 
I long to hear the message 

That the blind man thought so sweet, 
" Behold the Master calleth thee. 

Go, worship at his feet." 

See, the ashes glow again, 

They've caught the hidden light. 
So Gkxl's dear grace was with me, 

Striving with all its might 
To teach me, though my castles 

Grumbled in dust away, 
There was work to do in patient love, 

If only to wait and pray. 

H. D. T. 



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( 84 ) 



THE MONB?S PEOPHBOT. 

A TAIX. 
BT AITIB o'BRISZr. 

CHAPTER IV. 

AN EXPECTED VISITOB. 

There are some yielding natures who fit readily into the niche in 
which Gk>d places them, and who with patient endurance make the 
best of their liyes, like flowers that may be torn up by the roots, yet, 
if planted again, will put forth fresh tendrils and emit a later fragrance. 
Mrs. Ormsby was one of those women who live as much in the lives of 
other people as in their own. While her husband was aliye, she thought 
only of hhn. Now she had no desire apart from her child ; individual 
happiness was her last consideration. Being thus unselfishly consti- 
tuted, she was a pleasant and sympathetic friend, and the Hut and its 
occupants were found to be a great addition to the social circle about 
Castleishen. She exercised a beneficial influence over those with whom 
she came in contact, and instead of repining at her altered fortunes, 
she gave herself as a living instance of Gkxl's fatherly care of his crea- 
tures. 

One lovely April morning she was sitting on the garden seat out- 
side the door, with Eustace M'Mahon and Baby Sydney. The Hut had 
a great attraction for the boy, and his sudden flittings caused his 
mother occasional anxiety. Winifred and Carrie appeared at the 
gate. 

" Eustace, you are very naughty," said the latter. " Why do you 
not tell when when you are coming here, and not have us sent look- 
ing for you?" 

*' I forgot,*' answered Eustace ; '* and I promised Helen to weed 
the beds." 

'* They will be nice empty beds when you are done with them," 
said Carrie ; •* you don't know a weed from a flower." 

" He is getting on very well," answered Mrs. Ormsby, **and is 
learning to be cautious in his acts. I intended to have gone up when 
Nellie could take baby. I have had news to-day. My old friend, 

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The Monks Prophecy. 85 

ArUiiir Wyndill, of whom you heard me epeak, has come home on 
leave, and, if possible, he will run down from Cork to see me." 

'* It would be a relief to see a new face/' said Carrie ; — " is it worth 
seeing, though ?" 

*' He is vexy good-looking, and better still, is yexy good," replied 
Mrs. Ormsbj ; *' he and poor Herbert were fast friends." 

*• Is he married?" 

'' No ; he has evexything but a wife. He is that kind of man that 
is not easily pleased." 

" Oh, an old bachelor, I suppose, on the look-out for perfection." 

" He is only thirty-six," answered Mrs. Ormsby. *' They accused 
him abroad of being a woman-hater, he seemed so invulnerable." 

" His coming down here does not look like it," said Carrie ; " you 
must have made an impression on him, at all events." 

A faint colour stole into the widow's cheek. " Herbert and I looked 
upon him as a dear friend," she replied. 

'' I wish / had some dear friends of the same sex and circum- 
stances," continued Carrie ; " my spirits are rising at the idea of any- 
one coming into this dreary old place* There is no pleasure even in 
getting a new dress, there is no one to see it. One might go about in 
the toilet of an ancient Briton." 

" You look very nice in your linen suit, Carrie." 

" Oh, yes ; girls look well enough while they are young, but youth 
does not last, unfortunately. Just fancy I will soon be out of my 
teens." 

'' I don't like to hear girls counting their ages," said Mrs. Ormsby, 
" aa you say youth does not last long, but the mature years that follow 
it are of equal importance." 

" If I don't have some value out of the world, I shall hate it when 
I am old," answered Carrie, " that is one thing positive. I am tired 
of my life as it is, moping about without the least amusement. I wish 
Mr. Wyndill asked me to elope, Helen, it would be a little break in 
the monotony." 

'* Would not a less romantic mode of proceeding suit you ?" said 
Mrs. Ormsby, smiling. " You must not get dispirited, Carrie, dear ; 
someone will disturb your stillness yet and give you a brighter life. 
Look at Winifred; how content she is." 

" Oh, Winifred and you can take godly views, but I can't," an- 
swered Carrie ; " and besides, she had more value out of her time than 
I had. The officers were here, and she went to several balls. 'Tis 
well for you and her, nothing frets you." 

" Here, take your babbler, Helen," exclaimed Winifred, coming 
up with the baby, laughing in her arms. '' We must return at once, 
to assure mother Eustace has escaped the river once more. We will 
expect you later on." ^ . 

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86 The Monk's Prophecy. 

" And if yon do not come to-day, be sure to come in the morning 
to tell us if Mr. Wyndill be coming, so that papa may ask him 
to dinner," said Carrie. *'I hope he won't think us dreadfully 
stupid.'* 

"You may be certain he will enjoy himself," answered Mrs. 
Ormsby ; ** he will be delighted with the scenery." 

" The scenery I should like is something different," said Carrie 
laughing : "a square, a band, well-dressed people promenading, and 
myself the most conspicuous among them ; it would be livelier than 
trees and riyers, I fancy. I'm sure people are pretending half the 
time when they get into ecstacies over nature. Kature and mud seem 
to me synonymous terms. Good-bye, Helen ; I hope you will soon 
have further news of Mr. Wyndill." 

Further news of him arrived in a day or two ; but his letter was to 
say that he must postpone the pleasure of seeing his old friend ; he 
was unavoidably detained in Cork. Carrie asserted it was just what 
she expected, nothing ever pleasant occurred at Castleishen, and it was 
so absurd of people to say they were coming and going to places when 
in all probability they had no real idea of it. However, the following 
week brought an invitation for the two girls from a relative in a neigh- 
bouring county, and Carrie forgot Mr. Wyndill's sin of omission in 
the pleasure of preparing for her visit. Winifred decided on re- 
maining at home. 

Very tranquilly the summer came; strange, new beauty crept out of 
the brown earth, giving colour and perfume to the Hut ; Baby Sydney 
toddled among the flowers, puUing forget-me-nots as blue as her own 
eyes, and the bright waters of Poulanass dashed over the ivy-covered 
fall, making ceaseless music for the inmates of the cottage. Mr. 
M'Mahon often sat watching it from the end window while he talked 
to father Moran on county and parish matters ; Mrs. M'Mahon sat 
near him, placidly knitting a square of an interminable quilt ; Mrs. 
Ormsby and Winifred looked after the tea, while Eustace and Sydney, 
under Nellie's surveillance in the kitchen, sent peals of happy 
laughter through the house. 

Helen Lindsay had been Winifred's ideal of womanly beauty 
when she came in her fresh girlhood to Castleishen ; she gave her 
that half -passionate, half -reverential affection which is often felt by 
young people for those much their senior ; now that both were women, 
the seven or eight years' difference in their ages made little difference 
in their feelings, and they were true and earnest friends. 



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The Monk's Prophecy. 87 



CHAPTER V. 

A OHANGE FOB OABRIE. 

Carrie M'Malion returned home in September, and oonld talk of 
nothing but her gay doings, and the admiration she received while 
she was away. The amusement she had had only increased her desire 
for it, and she became more discontented than erer. She remained 
all day curled up on the sofa, reading noyels and ventilating her 
opinions to Winnie. What was the use of going out ? There was no 
one to see. She had no fancy for going into dirty cabins like Winnie. 
She liked flowers well enough when they were made in bouquets ; but 
she had no idea of spoiling her hands rooting among thenL She hated 
needlework ; and indeed the housekeeping was not on such a grand 
scale that her help was necessary to its success. So, really, there was 
nothing to be done. 

" I wish to goodness mamma would let us go to Dublin for a few 
months, Winnie," she said one evening, flinging away her book. "It 
would not cost so much. What a miserable thing it is to be always 
counting cost! If you saw the style the Singletons live in ! — and I'm 
sure papa has more property.'* 

'' But it is encumbered, Carrie ; that makes a great difference.'' 

"Parents ought not to be encumbering their properties," said 
Carrie. '* They had everything while they were able to enjoy it, and 
we have nothing, moping in this horrible hole. I'd rather be earning 
my bread." 

" Tis unkind of you to speak so, Carrie ; and you are no more fit 
to earn your bread than a baby. Can't you occupy yourself or interest 
yourself in something, and you won't feel it so dull." 

" What on earth have I to do ? If I put new trimming on my ha<^ 
who is to see it ? 'Tis easy enough for you to talk. You had a couple 
of years' amusement. I'm sure I wonder you did not get married, and 
you so handsome ; but little good our beauty is to us now. Buried 
alive here, what good is life to us ? " 

"'Tis sinful of you, Carrie, to talk so wildly. If mother heard you, 
it would fret her ; she is more sorry than you, not to be able to 
give us more advantages.** 

" Well, she doesn't hear me ; and I don't know what good her 
sorrow does. See all they allow George, and they don't allow us 
anything — keeping us here till we are as old as the hills, and he, such 
an idiot, to go marry without a penny. I wonder what would become 
of us if papa died? " 

" (Jod would provide," said Winnie. 

Vol. X.. No. 104. 8 

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88 The Monk^s Prophecy. 

" Oh, how religioiU9 you are ! Td like to be provided for, I must 
Bay ; but I suppose we'll have to stay on here till we are so old no one 
will have us. What a sweet old maid I'll make ! " 

''I don't know that you will even be an agreeable married woman," 
said Winnie, '' if you haven't everything you like, and that's hardly 
possible.'* 

" I should be better off than I am, at all events. The only 
thing I like here is going to bed. In the morning I think what is 
the use of getting up ? 'Tis always from the same to the same. A 
visit from Father Moran or Helen Ormsby ; the most exciting subject 
of conversation being what Eustace said, or what Sydney attempted 
to say." 

''Sydney is growing a great little darling," said Winnie. ''She 
amuses me, anyway." 

''Oh, you like children, but I don't; they claw one's ribbons 
and disturb one generally. Distance enhances their youthful 
charms." 

Carrie was one of those unpleasantly constructed young ladies who 
require excitement or admiration to develop their agreeable qualities ; 
who are bright and attractive in society, but at home are idle, 
lazy, and selfish, with an indisposition to do anything for anyone : 
so eager for their own career, so wrapped up in speculations for their 
own future, that the present is objectless and home without an interest. 
A girl of this kind may be mentally defective, or she may have a fair 
share of intelligence, but she has usually a very strong will. She is 
too self-oentred to be sensitive, so she generally succeeds in gaining 
her point. She relishes the things of the world, and has, indeed, a 
vexy fairly developed animal nature. Her principal taste is for display ; 
she does not care for the trouble of cultivating flowers, but she likes 
to have them, because it is the thing to have them ; she delights in fine 
clothes but takes no care of them, and is more inclined to buy grand 
furniture than to keep it in order ; to be noticed, admired, applauded 
is her one ambition, and it is much pleasanter to meet her in a ball- 
room than by the fireside. She is an excellent specimen of a fine lady, 
but not of a lovable woman. 

However, fortune favoured Canie. A lady, whose acquaintance 
she made during her summer visit, asked her and Miss Singleton to 
Dublin for a few months ; she was only too happy to accept the invita- 
tion. Her fair face captivated a young barrister, who proposed for 
her and was accepted. When she returned to Oastleishen, he followed 
her, and as he was fairly off and rising in his profession, there could 
be no objection to the marriage. 

No one but Father Moran and Mrs. Ormsby knew the sacrifice 
Winifred made when she found that more money was necessary than 
her father had arranged to give Carrie. " Give her some of what you 

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The Monk's Prophecy, 89 

intend for me, father," she said, '' let there be no unpleasantness about 
the money ; I might never want it, and, if I do, God will provide." 

The father and the priest demurred, but, at last, the business was 
so arranged. The money was raised, and, to her extreme satisfaction, 
Carrie left Castleishen the wife of Mr. Hassett, and became a fashion- 
able city lady. 

And so time passed on with unnoticed flow, making but little 
external or internal changes in aught but Baby Sydney, who was 
grown a lovely laughing prattler of three years old, when, one morning, 
Mrs. Ormsby had a letter from Mr. Wyndill, saying he was coming 
home on sick leave, and this time would surely pay her the intended 
visit. He had never discontinued writing to her, and her friends 
used laughingly to quiz her about her foreign admirer. In the early 
summer he arrived in England, and wrote to her to engage rooms for 
him at Lisduff. She did so, and in a short time he arrived, a slight, 
handsome man, quite youthful-looking, and a thorough gentleman. 
It seemed as if the old life came back with him, they had so many 
things and people to speak about, and the few days he remained 
seemed quite fresh and pleasant. He became a great favourite with 
the priest and Mr. M'Mahon, and was himself so delighted with the 
beautiful scenery and his cordial reception, that he announced his 
intention to come again and make a longer stay. Before he left, he 
engaged the rooms at the little hotel, and, in the end of May, proveo 
he was no waverer in his plans, by arriving with an amount of luggage 
that indicated a visit of some duration. 

He hired a small yacht, and excursions on the river were of daily 
oocurrence. Even Mr. and Mrs. M'Mahon, who rarely left home, were 
induced, several times, to join the little party, but Mrs. Ormsby, 
Winifred, the two children, and Father Moran, when he had time, 
were never weary of the bright waters, sometimes remaining out until 
the moon changed the little bay into a sheet of quivering silver. Then 
the evenings were spent at Castleishen, or the Hut, chatting, playing 
cards, or listening to Winifred's sweet old songs. Beport soon joined 
the names of Mrs. Ormsby and Mr. Wyndill, to the extreme indignation 
of Nellie, who scoffed at the idea of her mistress having any unworthy 
notion savouring of matrimony. 

" Helen," said Winifred, entering the Hut one morning, " Mr. 
Wyndill has just been up to ask us to lunch at Innistubber. Will 
you come?" 

''I shall be delighted; it is a lovely day. Will Father Moran 
oome?" 

'' I'm sure he will, if he can. The yacht will be ready at 
one o'clock." 

" Sit down, then, dear ; I shan't be a moment finishing off this bit 
of work, and then I'll get Sydney ready!" 



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90 The Monk's Prophecy. 

** Helen," said Winifred, after a pause, '^ what am I to do if 
Mr. Wyndill take you away from me ? " 

'' There is no fear of that," replied the widow, smiling. 

** Surely you would not refuse him ? " 

** No, dear Winnie, for an excellent reason — ^he won't ask me." 

'' I don't know that. It seems likely. It would be a great thing 
for Sydney," said Winifred. 

" She will have to do without a stepfather, Winnie ; Mr. Wyndill 
won't ask me to many him. He will not go in for second-hand love, 
belieye me." 

The sudden music of a child's laugh broke in on the conversationy 
and Mr. Wyndill appeared at the window, with Sydney on his shoulder* 
He had found her outside with Eustace, and had swung her up. He 
came to tell them the yacht was ready ; that he had persuaded Mr. 
and Mrs. M'Mahon to come, and they were all waiting on the shore. 

Mrs. Ormsby put on her hat, and in a few moments they set out, 
Mr. Wyndill carrying Sydney. The old pair were made as comfortable 
as possible with cushions and rugs, and they were soon under weigh, 
the light vessel gliding through the calm waters, making musical 
little wavelets, when the soft breeze filled the white sails. 

Father Moran walked up and down the deck, emmdating his 
opinions on all subjects, from the catching of a seal to the conduct of 
a prime minister ; Mr. Wyndill sat smoking beside Mr. M'Mahon ; the 
ladies sat apart, Mrs. M'Mahon and Mrs. Ormsby in deep consulta- 
tion over a piece of dress for Etustace or Sydney, while Winifred leant 
over the vessel's side, gazing into the water, with many thoughts 
passing dreamily through her mind. 

''Your thoughts must be pleasant company, Winifred," said 
Father Moran. " What are you smiling at ? " 

" Would not anyone smile, such a lovelyday?" answered Winifred. 

** That's true, my dear ; and we won't carry the troubles of earth 
out on the water with us. The master there forgets how hard it is to 
get the rents ; the mothers over the way all the boots and shoes the 
children wear out ; our captain does not remember there's a black on 
earth ; and as for myself, I'm only a light-hearted young curate, 
without any parish responsibilities." 

" Your troubles were never heavy enough to depress you. Father 
Moran," said Mr. Wyndill. 

** I wouldn't let them, my dear sir. 'Tis a mean spirit that gets 
down-hearted; and I had troubles enough, I can tell you; when I 
hadn't them of my own I had those of other people. If I hadn't a 
wife to regulate, I had the regulating of many a man's wife." 

" A very difficult office," said Mr. Wyndill, smiling. 

" You don't know the half of it, my dear sir. They would annoy you. 
A woman marries a dnmken blackguard with her eyes open^then she 

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The Monk's Prophecy. 91 

mne oomplaiiiing to the priest when he beats her, as she richly 
deeerves for taking him. And a man takes the woman pretty much as 
if she were an animal. Size and money are about the only things of 
which he has an idea ; and, oh, dear, then they are so much to be pitied 
because they can't puU together." 

" The principal parties generally have little to do with making 
their own matdies, and 'tis wonderful how well they get on," said 
Mrs. M'Mahon. 

" Yes," said the priest ; " as a rule they get on fairly ; they are so 
hard-worked they haye no time for any sentimental stu£^. There is 
nothing like work for keeping people out of mischief. But some 
persons have no business to many at all ; they are no more able or 
willing to discharge the duties of a husband, or wife, or parent than 
a brute beast As long as they feed them, they think 'tis all right. 
The spirit is forgotten. They won't even give them good example. 
Parents will have a nice account to settle on the last day. 'Tis not 
the body of the child the Lord will ask them for at all, but the soul." 

'' You are enough to alarm the unwedded," said the coloneL 

" I should make a man act well, and not frighten him from acting," 
said the priest " 'Tis a weak nature that shrinks from a position 
because it entails responsibilities. Duties are little cords that link iis 
to Ck>d. You must get a higher motive, my friend, for remaining a 
bachelor." 

" When the right person accepts me, I won't want a motive any 
longer,** replied Mr. Wyndill, laughing. " I'll go in for the duties." 

Innistubber rose green and bare from the water as they approached 
it. On one side the ruins of a Cistercian monastery stood like a 
solemn sentinel of the past, keeping mournful guard, when the army 
iA which it was a part had passed away, with its stirring music, its 
streaming banners, and its bright, beautiful fulness of life, and it 
alone was left, a mute witness of vanished days. The tombs around 
were crumbling like the bones they covered ; the old walls were fes- 
tooned with ivy ; scale ferns and rock plants flourished in abundance, 
the jackdaw reared her noisy brood in a niche in the tower, and a 
sparrow-hawk took up her abode in the belfry, where once upon a 
time the musical clangour of bells broke the holy silence and floated 
forth lipon the pulsing waters. Goats browsed on the ivy in the 
chancel, and bleated to their kids, where the voice of the chanting 
monk had sung of Ood in the solitude ; and the low beams of the 
morning sun illumined the spot where the high altar had stood, 
whereon the Great Sacrifice had been raised, and the Son of God was 
offered to his Eternal Father. ''But the former things have passed 
away." 

It was high noon when the yacht was anchored and the party 
landed ; a substantial hamper was taken out by the colonel's servant 

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02 The Monk's Prophecy. 

and one of the boatmen, and, after choosing a proper sitjd, they all sat 
down and made a very hearty use of the edibles. After luncheon they 
stood up to examine the ruins. Eustace had called imperatively for 
Winifred, and she stood now upon a fallen column, her fine figure 
drawn to its full height, while she held up her brother to peer into a 
bird's nest. Colonel Wyndill joined her, and they walked about the 
abbey, making out the inscriptions, and speculating about the possible 
lives of those who had lived, loved, rejoiced, and suffered, and who 
had passed away, leaving no visible mark on that world they had once 
dung to 60 passionately. No material mark ; but had they left no 
immaterial one? Did they transmit no virtuous inclination, no 
vicious propensity, no unseen impulse for good or evil to their poste- 
rity? — seed which would blossom and bear fruit for the eternal 
Gleaner. 

When they joined the rest of the party, it was time to depart. 
Happiness has usually a stilling effect on deep natures, and they were 
rather silent in the boat, watching the sinking sun throwing its mystic 
hues over wave and shore. Sydney slept in her mother's arms, a 
mass of golden hair gleaming against the widow's black dress. 
Eustace leant against Winifred ; once she lifted her head from speaking 
to him, and found a pair of dark eyes fixed on her with that 
strange, absorbed expression that has a mesmeric influence in catching 
the attention. The girl felt suddenly startled into consciousness, and 
bent over the boy. Mr. Wyndill talked to Mrs. Ormsby of things and 
people foreign to her, so she did not join in the conversation. 

When they reached the little quay at Lisduff, Father Moran wanted 
them to finish the evening at his house, but the elders protested 
against any further dissipation. Father Moran saw Mrs. Ormsby 
home, and the colonel walked up the avenue with the M'Mahons. 
He lingered slightly till the elders were gone on, arm-in-arm, and 
then he and Winifred followed. They were silent, though the girl 
made several efforts to talk as usual. The moonbeams were streaming 
through the. interlacing trees, making a wavering pathway of light 
and shade, and the great arms of the oak and beech clashed softly 
together, making music for the night. 

*• I hope you enjoyed the day ?" he said, when they were near the 
door. 

" Indeed I did, thoroughly. Did you ?' 

" It is well,*' he answered, in a low voice, " if I be not enjoying 
myself too much." 

He declined entering ; he knew Mr. M'Mahon was somewhat tired. 
He wished them good-night, and departed. 

Winifred, being a very handsome girl, was quite accustomed to 
words and glances expressive of masculine admiration — so accustomed 
indeed, that they made not the least impression on her — so it was rather 

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The Monk's Prophecy. 93 

curious that Mr. Wyndill's eyes and short sentence should have 
made her forget to say even " good-night.'' She stopped for a few 
moments at the door after her father and mother entered, looking after 
him, as he walked down the avenue, till he disappeared under the 
trees. " Good heavens," she said to herself at last, " what a vain 
fool I am !" She turned in, and busied herself getting tea. 

" Winnie, my girl, the boating agrees with you,'' said her father. 
" I never saw you with such rosy cheeks." 

The next evening the moonlight was brightning the rushing waters 
of Foulanass, when a knock came to the door of the Hut, and Nellie 
admitted Mr. Wyndill. He apologised for the late hour he chose 
to pay a visit, but he had strolled on unconsciously, smoking a cigar, 
until he f oimd himself at the gate, and he then thought he might as 
well come in for an hour's chat. After some desultory talk he spoke 
of the time he should go abroad again, and his regret when he 
should leave. ''It is like being among friends," he said; "I can 
never forget all your kindness. I am such a lone bird I can value it 
properly." 

" And so you are among friends," said the widow, " as true ones as 
if you knew them all your life. I can answer for the M'Mahons and 
Fc^er Moran ; and it is not because you a prosperous man, in a 
worldly way. Those things weigh nothLig to natures like theirs." 

" They are rare people," he said, thoughtfully ; ' ' according to what 
a man has, not what he is, he is usually valued. A curious thing, is it 
not that Miss M'Mahon is not mairied, so pretty as she is." 

" Whafs curious in it?*' said Mrs. Ormsby, smiling; '' I suppose, 
like all men, you think a single woman, particularly if she be hand- 
some, a departure from the natural order of things. I never heard a 
man wondering why an ugly one wasn't married; — ^is it not: a tacit ad* 
mission that men many for beauty P" 

''They are attracted by it, no doubt; but no man but a fool weds a 
girl that has a pretty face as her only recommendation." 

"Another thing that amuses me in men's view of women," said 
Mrs. Ormsby, " is that her single state is never supposed to be the 
result of choioe. She would many if she were asked is usually the 
eondosion." 

" Well, isn't it generally the way 7 I should think few women 
cnoose old maidenism ;— of course I am excepting her who becomes a 
religious. I am speaking of those in the world." 

" Yes; of course. They may not choose it directly, but they choose 
it rather than marry a man for whom they do not care. They may not 
meet the right man, or droumstanoes may prevent their marriage with 
him. Some women will many anyone rather than live their lives 
alone, but others prefer solitude to uncongenial company ; and, really 



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94 The Monies Prophecy. 

it often provokes me to hear women spoken of as if no one ever asked 
them." 

" Oh, well," said the gentleman, laughing, ** it is only an awkward 
way we have of expressing ourselves. Certainly I did not mean to 
imply that Miss M'Mahon was not asked. I only wonder how a man 
is to resist asking her." 

" She has had several proposals," said the widow, " and very good 
ones." 

''Any engagement or attachment?" he asked. 

•* No ; she is neither engaged nor attached ; she is free to be won." 
She paused, and then added : " When she was very young, a gentle- 
man proposed for her, whom she liked well enough to accept, but it 
seems as if he wanted more money than he found she had, so it never 
came to anything. She said nothing about it to her family ; she only 
spoke of it to me." 

"By Jove, he was a mean beggar; to think of such a girl as hep 
being slighted, as it were, for money ;^but it often happens. Money 
18 the last thing I would think of." 

" Ah, but you are very well off, and that makes a great 
difference. However, a man ought to be sure of means and money 
and his own mind before he makes a proposaL She felt, as I suppose 
all young girls feel, that it was very humiliating to be put in the scale, 
but she has quite got over any mortification she may have suffered. 
You know," she continued, with a snule, *' officers are very dangerous 
in country quarters to girls just come home from school." 

" And a girl of her simple, frank nature, incapable of deceit herself, 
is easily enough deceived by another. I may as well confess, Mrs. 
Onnsby, that I admire her very much." 

" Tour instincts for what is true and noble are not leading you 
astray," she replied, warmly; "Winnie M*Mahon is deserving of 
the beet love of a good man. K you knew her as well as I do, you 
would find loving her an easy lesson ; one you could not help learning." 

" I am sure of it," he said ; " I have watched her ; and I am no 
mean judge of character now. I have knocked about a good deal among 
men and women : in fact, I don't think it would be safe for me to re- 
main on here much longer if there were no chance of my winning her 
to be my wife. The thing is will she care for me P" 

" If she do not, she won't marry you ; that's one thing certain," ahe 
repUed. 

" I thank God for that," he said ; " I couldn't bear a girl that 
would many me for any other motive than affection. I have said 
nothing to her yet ; I was afraid there might be some entanglement. 
I am so glad I spoke to you, you were always a friend to me ; of course, 
I need not tell you to say nothing about this conversation." 

" Oh, not a word," she replied ; " it would give me the greatest 

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The MonKs Prophecy. 95 

bappiness to see you and Winnie married. I would select you for each 
other out of the wide world,*' 

" WeU," he said, gaily, •' it won't be for want of wooing I won't 
win her;— I'll begin to-morrow." 

The wooing was a successful one. Winifred's only regret was, that 
another man had ever touched her heart, or rather touched her fancy. 
But Mrs. Qrmsby quite relieved her, by telling the- conyersation that 
took place between her and Mr. Wyndill, and made it easy for her to 
speak of the subject herself. Her lover only laughed at her, and said : — 

" Why, Winnie, darling, I was in love several times when I was a 
boy, like Bomeo before he met Juliet ; but was our feeling for anyone 
in the world like our feeling for each other?" And Winifred's 
scruples and misgivings vanished for ever. 

All the girl's friends were very much pleased at her happy prospects. 
They did not think so much of the man's worldly advantages as that 
he was one who realised that he was an accountable being, and had a 
0Dul to save, and who would love and cherish her tenderly. In Mrs. 
Hassetf s triumph was mingled some surprise, and a shade of envy. 
There was Winifred, at six-and-twenty, buried alive in the country, 
making a far more brilliant and wealthy marriage than %h» had done 
in her first bloom. It is a wise thing to wait sometimes ; and likely it 
was being thrown together so much in the lonely place, that brought 
him to the point. It is hard to know what is best to be done ; after 
all, a professional life was a very uncertain one, and a lady must live 
up to her means and be stylish, or she is thought nothing of. Winnie 
was a lucky girl, and, really, she did not deserve it, for she took no 
trouble about anything ; but it is generally those who strive most that 
get least. Such a distinguished-looking man, too ; one would know 
at once Arthur Wyndill was an aristocrat. It was very fortunate Mrs. 
Oimaby did not catch him. Widows are so knowing. 

Mrs. Hassett gazed discontentedly into her glass, and looked at a 
face where, already, the cares begotten of vanity, envy, and folly, had 
traced faint lines. If she gave as much time and thought to the eradica- 
tion of one of those faults as she gave to the cultivation of a desirable 
acqiiaintance, or the making of a new dress, no doubt her efforts would 
be crowned with success. But Mrs. Hassett was a woman of the world, 
not indined to introspection, and her sole ambition was to shine in 
aociety. She took intense interest in Winifred's trousseau, and spoke 
largely of Arthur Wyndill, her intended brotherrin-law. She and Mr. 
Hassett went to Castleishen for the wedding; and, one morning, the 
ceremony was quietly performed, by Father Moran, in the little church 
of lisduff; and then away went the bridal pair, leaving a blank 
behind that was never to be filled up. Mrs. Hassett returned to 
Dublin, and talked of Mrs. WyndiU much more frequently than she 
had talked of Winifred. 



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B 



( 96 ) 

THREE PANSIES. 

BT F. PENTBILL. 

I. A Wabwino. 
E not thy wit a razor keen ; 



For, though it have the razor's sheen. 
It must nor cut, nor bruise, nor sting. 
As butterflies upon the wing 
The flowers touch — then fly away — 
So be thy wit, as light as they. 
They rest on rose, they rest on thorn, 
And, while they stay, they both adorn. 
Be thou thus kind to friend and foe, 
And laugh with Joy, but ne'er at Woe. 

II. Fbixkdship. 

Love, greedy boy, wants all our smiles, 

When we are young ; 
And, if our hearts yield to his wiles, 

Away they're flung. 

But Friendship calm and patient stands, 

True to the last, 
And stretches forth her healing hands 

When love is past. 

Changeless as stars, whose light is hid 

By the sun's glow, 
Till night and darkness come to bid 

Their brightness show. 

III. Sunsets. 

In southern climes the sun departs 
With careless splendour from the day, 

like some court gallant who breaks hearts, 
And then, all heedless, turns away. 

But in our dear grey northern land 
He lingers long o'er his farewell ; 

As parting friends that, hand in hand. 
On each last word still fondly dwell. 

E'en when he goes, he leaves behind 

The twilight traces of his feet, 
The weeping day thus to remind 

That on the morrow they will meet. 



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( 97 



JOTTINGS IN LANCA8HIEE. 

BY B08A MTTLHOLLAND. 

n. 

Pbok the cotton plant, with its pretty yellow flower, which does not 
disgrace a greenhouse, may be said to have sprung a very great share 
of the wealth of England. The cotton itself, a vegetable wool which 
adheres to the seeds of certain plants, shrubs, and trees, having been 
picked free of the seeds, is sent packed in great bales from India and 
America, and lodged in the warehouses of Liverpool ; and from these 
huge stores it is sent on to Manchester and the other manufacturing 
towns. The immense waggons that traverse the streets of Manchester, 
drawn by monstrous horses, are generally laden with cotton in raw or 
manufactured state ; and one cannot waU: the thoroughfares of Liver- 
pool without meeting persons running in and out of merchants' offices, 
carrying bags containing samples of cotton, from which the fluffy 
white substance protrudes. Before Stephenson successfully carried 
his railway over the profitless and apparently impassable Chatmoss, 
there were agents in Liverpool whose business it was to buy the 
cotton, when it arrived, for the Manchester manufacturers. After 
that important event, however, even this matter of buying and selling 
became simplified, and the manufacturers have long been familiar 
with the Liverpool streets. 

The history of the great trading seaport of England is as curious 
as any other part of the annals of Lancashire. Strangers who walk 
its busy thorou^^ares, and gase at its ponderous buildings, perhaps 
can hardly realise how very modem is its growth, and how recent the 
rise of its prosperiiy. In 1565, Liverpool contained only 138 house- 
holders; in 1644, it was surrounded by a mud wall and ditch, 
boasted a castle, and was able to resist Prince Bupert, on the side of 
parliament. The year 1700 found the population 4,240, and in the 
same year the marriages it saw were 34, christenings 181, burials 125* 

In J 730, the number of inhabitants had increased to 12,000, and 
the first important vessel sailed out of the harbour for piratical traffic 
in slaves. One dock was already made, and an Act had been applied 
for to make a second. Slave- ships and inhabitants rapidly increased 
during the centuiy, internal canal navigation began to benefit the 
town, and a theatre was built. In 1840, the number of vessels in the 
Liverpool docks was 15,998, and since then the traffic of all kinds has 
increased with incredible speed. A writer in the year 1842, says : — 

'^ The docks of Liverpool are a sight of never-ending novelty, and 
iba bu^ M^enes they continually present afford excellent studies of 

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qS Jottings in Lancashire. 

individual character from all countries (for what flag is not found 
there ?), and of the capabilities and fruits of human industry. Here 
is the vessel deeply laden, just passing out of the dock-gates for a 
voyage to the Antipodes ; there is another destined, perhaps, to the 
Indies, and afterwards to the Pole. Now the weather-beaten rigging 
and patched sails of a ship preparing to enter speak of tempests 
encountered beyond the equator, or amid the icebergs and snowy coves 
of Greenland." 

In the present day the Liverpool docks cover f orfy miles of ground, 
and the incoming and outgoing of the wondrous multitude of great 
steamers to and from all parts of the world are an ever-growing 
wonder to the looker-on. It has been said that Liverpool, rather than 
London, is the place to see and judge of England's wealth, for all the 
riches of the earth are poured by turns into her ponderous store- 
houses. And to the honour of the great port be it said that she 
opened the way to her own greatness by honesty and integrity, by pro- 
viding, in the beginning, safe harbour for the goods which traders 
entrusted to her, ensuring them from depredation, and thus encourag- 
ing their owners to continue to conflde the most valuable merchandize 
to her care. Liverpool is simply a mighty harbour, the mouth 
through which England receives the food which sustains its strength, 
its merchants chiefly dealing with goods in the condition in which they 
oome into the country, and its manufactiires not being important, 
consisting principally of soap-boiling, sugar-reflning, shipbuilding, 
manufacture of steam-engines, anchors, chains, and cables. At the 
entrance of the Mersey, on one of the great days for arrivals and 
departures of steamers, the sea presents a curious sight — ^vast steamers, 
with many funnels, pant after one another, looking like a Leviathan 
fleet, and the wide expanse of the heavens grows dark with their 
smoke. As evening comes on a magniflcent sunset paints the west 
with crimson and gold, piUng towering clouds of every gorgeous hue, 
heap over heap, high up in the lofty and far-spreading firmament. 
The gigantic vessels wrap themselves in their dusky shrouds, and stalk 
in a majestic gloom of their own through the heavenly fires of the 
atmosphere ; and later still the lights spring up in the port of Bock 
Point, on the Cheshire shore, and glow in ^e twilight, outshone 
by the red eyes of the still passing steamers, which glare through their 
smoke as they pant away on into the night. 

This port of Sock Point, which stands like a guardian of much 
life and treasure at the mouth of the river, rises twenty-four feet 
above the water, is 200 yards in extent, mounts six thirty-two-pound 
guns, and has barracks within it for 100 men. It stands forth with the 
lights and heights of New Brighton behind it, and near it a great 
Lighthouse, withjpowerful revolving light, gives its still more necessary 
protection to the coast. There is a certain picturesque grandeur about 

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Jottings in Lancashire. 99 

this wateiy spot, this opening of the great river into the sea — a 
splendour of lights and clouds, and flying, shifting colours. It is said 
that Turner used to come here to study effects of cloud and atmos- 
phere ; and in truth, standing on the wide, wet sands, after the sun 
has set, when the sky is all one lurid flame fringed with darkness, and 
the sea all one field of gold, seeing the glow-worm lights struggling 
through a mirk haze on the opposite height and flats, and beholding 
some monstrous steamer from far away trailing its black length 
through the glory, and glaring with red eyes out of the black and 
filmy veils in which it wraps itself as it goes, one is forcibly reminded 
of Turner's most magnificent masterpieces. 

Just as one is surprised to find picturesque effects in the midst of 
the most commonplace scenery, so is there a certain charm about 
unearthing a ghostly tale close to the busy, bustling haunts of a latter- 
day manufacturing capital ; and Lancashire, with all its cotton- 
spinning and other matter-of-fact occupations, finds time for cherishing 
some as startling legends and weird superstitions as could be found in 
the most romantic and unapproachable regions. At Wardley HaU, 
for instance (near Manchester), one of the ancient dwellings we have 
alluded to, we are seriously assured there is, and has been since the 
time of Charles U., a terrible skull which will not allow itself to be 
buried. The skull is preserved, and treated with a sort of fearful 
respect by the family residing in the house, who reluctantly submit to 
the tyranny of its presence. 

Standing in a small woody glade, Wardley Hall was originally 
almost surrounded by a moat, and is a black and white, half-timbered 
building of quadrangular form, constructed of ornamental wood and 
plaster, and entered by a covered archway opening into a courtyard in 
the centre. It was erected in the reign of £dward lY., and in later 
times it had for master, Boger Downes, a man who is described as 
" one of the most abandoned courtiers of Charles II.*' The story runs 
that on one occasion this graceless person rushed forth from among his 
roistering companions, swearing he would kill the first man he met, 
and that meeting a poor tailor coming out from his work he stabbed 
him to the heart on the spot. Soon afterwards he was killed himself 
in a riot, by a watchman on London Bridge, and his head, having 
been struck off by a billhook, was picked up and sent packed in a 
box to his sister at Wardley Hall. Being buried, it refused to stay in 
the grotmd, and returned to the Hail. Again and again it was 
deposited deep in the earth, and occasionally sunk to the bottom of 
rivers and ponds, but all to no purpose ; the skull positively refused 
to make itself at home anywhere except in a most prominent position 
in its own house. The spot it chose for itself was a niche in the wall 
above the staircase, which opens out of the great hall, and behind it 
is a window which must always be left unglazed, or the skxdl becomes 

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loo Jottings in Lancashire. 

tmruly, and disasters fall upon the inmates of the house. A door has 
been made, covering the ghastly spectacle from everyday view, and 
it is kept carefully locked up in its lonely and airy recess. 

Wardley Hall originally belonged to the Lords of Wardley, but 
was vacated by them on the eve of the Oivil Wars, and became the 
property of Eoger Downes (father of the luckless being whose head 
has been such a trouble to succeeding generations), and Penelope, his 
wife, daughter of Sir Cecil Trafford, Knight. It is told of this Sir 
Cecil that he became a Catholic through trying to '' convert " Boger 
Downes (the father) from the errors of Popery. In 1830, the old 
Hall was in a ruinous condition ; one part was occupied as a farm- 
house, and the rest divided into nine cottages, but since then it has 
been thoroughly renovated, and is inhabited (under Lord EUeemere) 
by a gentleman farmer and owner of collieries. The skidl still holds 
its place in the ghastly cupboard on the staircase, in the room which 
is called the haU, a spacious apartment ornamented with the coat of 
arms of the Downes family, with a fluted oaken roof and omamoital 
wainscot. The stairs which must be ascended to reach the awful door 
have a noble look of antiquity about them, though a little spoiled by 
modem decoration. Of the door itself two keys are kept — one is held 
by the tenant of the Hall, and the other was in the possession of the 
late aud first Countess of EUesm^e, who used sometimes to visit the 
grim prisoner herself, unlocking the door and revealing the grinning 
skull. 

All this sounds very like a story made to tell, but we have ample testi- 
mony to the facts of the actual presence of the skxdl at Wardley TTa^ll^ 
and of the superstitions attached to it. Thomas Barritt, an antiquary, 
of Manchester, visited the place towards the end of the eighteen^ 
century, and, with some friends, inspected the skull. They found it 
bleached white with weather, from die four-square unglazed window 
through which sun and rain beat in upon it, and were informed by the 
residents in the house that if the apertures were dosed, or the skull 
removed elsewhere, they should be so persecuted by its vengeance as 
not to be able to remain under the roof. One of the visitors there- 
upon took occasion to remove it secretly, and hid it in a dark comer 
of the room before he returned home. On the night but one following, 
a terrible storm arose about the house, wind and lightning tore down 
trees and unthatched the outhouses — all mischief being of course 
traced to the wrath of the skull, which, when found in its dark comer, 
was instantly returned to its ancient abiding place. 

Later still, in the year 1861, the editor of an interesting volume* 
on Lancashire, Mr. John Harland, F.S.A., with Mr. T. Wilkinson, 
F.E.S.A, visited the Hall, and found the ghastly tenant still in un- 
disturbed possession of its windowed niche, though hidden from 

• "Lancashire Legends, Traditions, Pageants, Sports, &cJ^^^^f^ 

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Jottings in Lancashire. loi 

ordinaiy -view by carefollj looked doors. Mr. Harland tells us that he 
held it in his hands and examined it ; but, unlike a former audacious 
visitor, he restored it to its chosen resting-place. Whether it is to be 
seen at this moment we are unaware, but think it highly probable 
that it still moulders in c(moealment upon its narrow throne. When 
so g^iastly a superstition as this obtains in "Rngl^iy^^ our less imagina- 
tiye oousins across the channel need not cast up their hands and eyes 
at, for instance, the misty draperies and piercing wails of our weird, 
but graceful and sympathetic Banshee. 

There is scarce a manufacturing town in Lancashire that has not 
some picturesque medinval legend hovering about it, with colours 
almost blotted out by modem smut and smoke. Warrington, for 
instance, which is said to be the oldest town in the county, and was a 
station of the ancient Bomans, has many a fragment of poetic story 
If^^g^^g about it, whose figures come and go in the smoky twilight (^ 
the present day, like the knights and dames on a faded and wind- 
stirred tapestry. Such a tale is that of the slaying of Sir Thomas 
Butler, of Bewsey (corrupted from Beausey), and the rescue of his 
infant son by the ingenuity and presence of mind of the brave and 
heartbroken mother, aided by the coolness and pluck of a little page. 
Sir Thomas was the Lord of Warrington, and his castle was strongly 
fortified, and surrounded by a wide moat. Lord Stanley, his enemy, 
resolved to kill him, and bribed one of his chamberlains to put a light 
iu his master's window, that the sword of the foe might loiow where 
to find him in the dead of the winter's night. Stanley, with a band 
of brutal companions, crossed the moat in leather boots, climbed 
to the window, and murdered the strong man in his bed. A baUad 
tells how the mother, even in the surprise and horror of so hideous a 
moment, was able to scheme to save her babe, for whom the murderers 
were seeking. The sleeping heir was hurried into a wicker basket, 
and the treacherous porter, who had let in the foes, allowed the fleet 
messenger who had charge of the child to pass through the guarded 
gates. (Sir Thomas is called Sir John in the ballad) : — 

'* * Now, whither swaj thou little page, 
Now Either away bo fast?" 
" Thej hare alain Sir John," said the little page, 
" And hit head in the wicker caet.*' 

** And whither goett thou with that grisly head T* 

Orled the porter grim again; 
'* To Warrington Bridge they bid me run. 

And Mt it up amain !** 

** There may it hang," cried that loathly koare, 

*< And grin till the teeth be dry ; 
While erery day with jeer and taunt 
WaiIm«*ittiUIdier 

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I02 Jottings in Lancashire. 

** The porter opened the wicket straight, 
ipd the meeeenger went his way. 
For little he guessed of the head that now 
In that basket of wicker lay." 

While the child is thus being carried away to safety the mother is 
parleying with the assassins, striving to prevent them approaching 
the room where he is supposed to be asleep ; and when his bed is 
found empty she pretends to go mad at the discovery. In the end, 
the disappointed villains kill the treacherous chamberlain for allowing 
the infant to be carried away. 

In the time of the Civil Wars Warrington was important, as there 
was no bridge over the Mersey between it and Liverpool. It was 
garrisoned for Charles I., and when the walls were stormed the 
Koyalists took up their post in the church, and there made a resolute 
defence. From Warrington issued the first newspaper ever published 
in Lancashire, and from that town was started the first stage-coach 
ever run in the country. In the middle of the last century it was called 
the Athens of the north of England, an academy being established in 
1757, which rapidly rose to celebrity under Dr. Aikin, Dr. Priestly, 
Dr. Taylor (author of the '' Hebrew Concordance "), and others, and 
the opening of which was celebrated by Mrs. Barbauld in one of her 
best pieces. It is worth mentioning, for the lovers of old-style 
dwellings, that there is a cottage in the neighbourhood of Warrington 
containing a room, in 'a thorough state of preservation, which is the 
most perfect specimen of English domestic architecture in the age of 
the Tudors to be found in any of the northern counties. 

In a picturesque spot of Lancashire we catch, strangely enough, a 
glimpse of the warlike figure of an Irishman famous in history, iJie 
great Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, nephew of the mighiy Shane 
who so tenribly worried Queen Elizabeth. On one occasion, it seems, 
after a defeat by the English, the great Hugh retired into concealment, 
and lived for some time a solitary life in the midst of charming 
scenery, and while dwelling in this picturesque retirement, he had, if 
we believe the old chroniclers, many a romantic adventure. In a 
woody glen, in a bend of the road, to the north of Morland or Merland 
is " Tyrone's Bed," where he reposed in security, untracked, and un- 
discovered by his foes. A tale is told of his having rescued from 
drowning the lovely Constance, daughter of Holt of Grizelhurst, who 
afterwards, in a moment of danger, hid him in her chamber, where 
he was made prisoner by surprise. It is said that Constance pined 
and died for his sake; but whether she ever existed, save in the 
romancer's imagination, it would be exceedingly difficult to say. 

To another fine old Lancashire mansion a curious story is attadied. 
Ince Hall is built in the half-timbered style, and its six sharply-pointed 
eables, and long ranges of muUioned windows, give it an imposing 

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Jottings in Lancashire. 103 

appearance from a dUtanoe. Coming nearer, one seea that the remains 
of a moat are yisible, proving that it once possessed means of defence. 
The history of its owners carries us back to the year 1322, when 
"Bichard de Ince held one sixteenth of a knight's fee in Aspnll;" 
and the great grand-daughter of this knight married Sir Peter Oerrard, 
ri Tryn (whose family is at present represented by Lord Gerrard of 
Garswood), bringing to her husband the township of Ince. And 
we may incidentally mention here that it was a member of this ancient 
family, one Maurice FitzGerard, or FitzGerald, who, coming to Ireland 
with Strongbow, in 1170, founded the historic race of the Irish Fitz- 
Ctanlds, of whom our own Thomas Davis writes : — 

*' Thete G^eraldineB, theee Gkraldines, *tis full a thousand jeart 
Since 'mid the Tuican Tinejards bright flaahed their battle ipears." 

In the reign of James I. the then old Ince Hall had fallen into the 
hands of Roger Browne, and was by him splendidly restored and 
transformed into a costly mansion, the noble remains of which is still to 
be seen; and it is of a descendant of his, one Nicholas Browne, that the 
story is told which is known by the startling name of " Ince Hall 
and the Dead Hand." 

The dead hand was, and is, the hand of a Jesuit, Father Arrow- 
smith, who was executed at Lancaster, on the 28th of August, 1628, 
ou the charge of being a Eomish priest. Other charges were, of 
course, preferred against him, but all, save the most bigoted writers, 
now agree that his only crime was fidelity to his Saviour. His friends 
took measures to possess themselves of the martyr's right hand after 
his death, aod it has been, and is still, preserved as a sacred relic by 
the Catholics of Lancashire. It is said that miracles have frequently 
been performed by its touch ; and our story shows how a villain took 
advantage of the popular faith in its powers, to commit a sacrilege in 
presence of the living and the dead. 

At midnight, in a noble old tapestried chamber of Ince Hall, 
Nicholas Browne lay dying. He had been seized with sudden illness 
in the absence of his children, and by his side sat one Hilt, his lawyer, 
holding a document which he declared to be his client's unsigned will. 
The djing man was unable to respond to the urgent entreaties made 
to him and, incapable of any effort, expired without affixing his name 
to the parchment. The lawyer was dismayed, and the bystanders, 
thinking of the son and daughter who were to arrive in a few hours, 
and fearing some injustice had been done to them, sympathised deeply 
in his anxiety. A horseman was despatched to Bryn Hall, where the 
Dead Hand was carefully guarded, and, upon the urgency of the case 
being made known to its guardians, the relic, in its silken case, was 
delivered to the messenger and conveyed with all despatch into the 
dutches of the cunning Hilt. 

Vol. X. No. 104. C (^c^ci\o 

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I04 Jottings in Lancashire. 

Applying it to the hand of the dead man the lawyer declared that 
the corpse opened its eyee, and, taking up the pen in its fingers, signed 
the document. The awe<stricken and bewildered bystanders fancied 
tiiey had seen the dead man move, and when they saw the signature 
affixed to the paper they were ready to believe that a miracle had be«i 
wrought. What was tiieir amazement, however, when, on the parch- 
ment being opened, it was found to will everything, lands, and houses, 
and gold, to the lawyer Hilt; the son and daughter of Nicholas 
Browne being utterly ignored and forgotten I 

The young people arrived home, and, after the first burst of their 
grief was over, they learned, with amazement, of all that had takrai 
place. Then Kitty, the fair-haired daughter of Ince Hall, who had 
been her father's confidante, gathered her faithful servants round her, 
and led the way to the dark old library, where, from an ancient brass- 
handled carved bureau, which stood frowning in a comer, and of which 
she held a key, she drew forth her father's actual will, made some 
time before his illness, bequeathing all his possessions, as was natural, 
to his children ; but the document was, alas ! unsigned. 

We must suppose that in those days the courts of equity were 
highly unsatisfactory (as, indeed, they sometimes are still), for Hilt 
was able to make good his claim. Finding this, the son of Mcholas 
Browne challenged his enemy, and a duel took place within the grounds 
of the Hall. Hilt was wounded, as it appeared, mortally, and the dis- 
tracted youth, who fancied he had overflowed his cup of misfortune 
by taking the blood of a fellow-creature upon his head, fled out of the 
country and was never seen or heard of by his friends again. Whether 
he became insane and put an end to his life, or whether an accident 
finished his career; or whether, as may be suggested, Hilt, on his 
recovery, had him pursued and destroyed, we are unable to determine. 
TTift gentle sister was left alone in her adversity. 

After some time had passed away a pale, but resolute, young face 
appeared among the cottagers living around Ince Hall, and the sight 
of their sweet golden-haired young mistress, with her black robes and 
mournful eyes, touched her old dependents to the heart, and they 
readily promised to do all they could to help her to fight a battle with 
her enemy. What her plan was does not appear, but she seems to 
have had great courage and spirit in coming to take up her residence 
and wage her warfare at the very gates of the man who had proved 
so deadly a foe. The sequel is sad enough ; for poor little Kitty went 
out to the fields one summer evening and never came back to the 
cottage home where she had sought shelter. After long search, the 
country-folk gave her up as lost, and she was forgotten like her brother. 

And now Hilt was left to enjoy his ill-gotten wealth without mortal 
interference; and now, also, did his terrible punishment begin. 
Wherever he went he never could feel himself alone, but was haunted 

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Christmas in the Hospice. 105 

by something that wotdd not quit his sight. What it was he would 
tell to nobodj ; but he was seen to talk and gesticulate while walking 
alone, as if remonstrating with some being, Tisible only to himself. 
Groans and loud words were heard coming from his chamber, and 
servants and friends grew afraid of him, and dropped away from the 
Hall. At last he announced that he was going abroad to travel for 
his health ; and no one was sorry at the news. 

Before leaving the place, he pointed out a certain bed in the beau- 
tiful old garden, commanding the gardener not to dig the earth of this 
spot till his return, to let the flowers run wild in it rather than disturb 
a single root As soon as he was gone the gardener, impelled by 
curiosity, fell to digging up the bed with all his might, and soon dis- 
covered a human skull to which was attached a lock of poor Kitty's 
beautiful curling golden hair. It was thought that, having met the 
girl, he had invited her into the garden on pretence of parlejdng with 
her, had murdered her with a blow, and having hidden her among the 
bushes for some hours had buried her among the flower-beds in the 
dead of the summer night. 

After many years Hilt returned to the Hall ; but on his way thithei^ 
he was met by an apparition which barred the way and frightened 
the senses out of the servants, who refused to accompany him further, 
swearing that they had '' had enough of Miss Kitty." Hilt made his 
way alone to his mansion ; but no sooner had he arrived than the most 
terrible disturbances began about the place. Everyone fled from the 
spot, and, finally. Hilt himself rushed out of the door one dark night, 
and arrived in Wigan a raving lunatic, where be died. 

To this day the Hall is haunted by poor Kitty's ghost, which is 
seen flitting into the library with a candle in hand, and bending 
anxiously over the ancient bureau. 

{TqIb eontinuei.) 



CHEISTMAS IN THE* HOSPICE. 

Namely, in Our Lady's Hospice for the Dying, under the care of the 
Irish Sisters of Charity, at Harold's Cross, Dublin. A full and exceed- 
ingly interesting account of the founding and working of this Institu- 
tion was furnished in April, 1880 (Irish MorrraLY, vol. viii, page 200) 
by our " Discursive Contributor," who, in spite of that self-chosen 
name, has a wonderful knack of keeping to the point. Neyerth^ess, 

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io6 Christmas in the Hospice. 

we have sought and obtained pennission from both the Sisters and 
t leir Visitor to give our readers the following aooount of a visit recently 
paid to the Hospice, although the narrative has already appeared in 
the Freeman^ % Journal, Many will read it here for the first time, and 
others wOl be glad to have the affecting details set before them in this 
form to be studied at their leisure. It is a blessed thing to have any 
share in the kind and compassionate thoughts and deeds which will 
(please God) be inspired to many of the readers of these pages, not only 
now but perhaps in months and years to come. 

♦ * ♦ 

On Christmas Day, 1881, 1 found myself, a little after noon, within 
the gates of " Our Lady's Hospice for the Dying/' accompanied by a 
very small amount of knowledge concerning ike Institution. Past the 
school, where a great many children are taught daily, and where 
factory girls are taught nightly, by the Sisters of the Order, and along 
the broad avenue, I reached the house itself, a spacious building which 
had served, prior to its new purpose, as the novitiate of the Congrega- 
tion. On inquiring for the Lady Superior, I was shown into a large, 
bright reception-room to the right, where comfort, elegance, and 
cleanliness were vying with one another. I had just time to observe 
that the gaiety of holly and ivy was visible around, and that the 
furniture bore a polish to be attained only within convent walls, when 
the Reverend Mother, as she is more familiarly called, entered. At 
once she granted my request to be brought through the place, and she 
gave me some information I needed. 

It was to this effect. For a long time the Sisters of Charity were 
anxious to shelter, comfort, and care the dying for whom there was no 
hope, and for whom, consequently, the ordinary hospital was not 
meant. So, as soon as ever it was within their power, they opened 
this institution, mainly intending it for the lonely poor, but, all the 
same, not prepared to shut the door against any class, any creed, or 
any country. Its second year of existence had now come to a close, 
and it had received within its walls two hundred and fifty-five 
cases. Naturally, the majority ended fatally, yet, many whose com- 
plaints were considered hopeless recovered and left. Individual 
charity defrays the expenses, and the Sisters do the work for the love 
of the Creator and his creature. Infectious and mental disease, as well 
as epileptic cases, are inadmissible. For the present cancer patients 
cannot be received, but the Heverend Mother has hope that soon they 
may be in a position to take them in too. 

Already predisposed in favour of the institution, from having its 
aims thus clearly put before me, I started to make the round, escorted 
by the Eeverend Mother herself. "The patients* visitors are with 
them now," she remarked: "not, indeed, that we ever refuse a visitor, 
for here we must be extra tender and considerate. But this hour joa 

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Christmas in the Hospice. 1 07 

Sunday is devoted to the coming and going of the friends. Christmas 
is the most trying day of the year to them, being the last Ohristmas on 
earth for those they love, perhaps a parent or child, or nearer still, a 
husband or wife ; but to those within it is a glad day, for they know 
the next Christmas they spend will be with Ood in heaven.'' She led 
the way and I followed her — ^followed her steps, not her faith, 
for I coidd not yet realise that a last Christinas coidd be a day of 
gladness* 

At the end of a passage we came to the men's ward. Before en- 
tering, the air of '' The Qirl I left behind me " surprised my sense of 
hearing. Coidd it be possible I was in the Hospice for the Dying ? 
Yes, and when we went into the ward we saw a musical box 
on the table, hard at work, and the Sister in charge told us it was a 
source of the greatest pleasure to the poor sufEerers. The ward is a 
fine room, well lighted, well aired, and weU heated. Along both 
walls are arranged the purest and simplest of curtained beds, about 
ei^t on each side, I would say, at a rough guess. They were 
nearly all occupied, and the owners of those that were not might have 
been seen elsewhere in the ward — at the fire, or near the attractive 
musical box. From bed to bed we went, and think you we found any 
of the clinging to life which makes it so hard, they say, to die — any 
Off the revolt against the Divine decree which some might think natural 
under such circumstances ? Not in one single instance. Sorrow and 
sobs, alas ! were there, but at the bedside only. The weariness of the 
sii^-couch was softened away by resignation and marvellous peace. 
It alarmed me, the quiet of the sufEerers ; it saddened me with the 
awe of a great mystery. 

Approaching one young lad, on whose face far-gone consumption 
was plainly written, my guide told me he had been a student in France, 
a student for the priesthood, who had come back to die. '' He 
meant," she said, '' to work in the vineyard here, but Ood wants him 
above, so he is going gladly." A smile played over his features, 
making his eyes brighter even than they were, and heightening the 
hectic flush. I asked him in what part of la belle France he had been, 
and faintly I saw, rather than heard, the word Avignon on his lips. 

'* You are longing to go, my poor ?" the uun said—- oh, so kindly 

addressing him by his Christian name. He tried to speak, and the 
Sister of Charity bent over him. " Whenever it is God's will," was 
the answer, which almost spent his strength. '' Home with God next 
Christmas Day, surely," she said, in a low voice, and the light of hope 
passed over the poor fellow's face. 

In the bed next to him lay a man advanced in years, dying of the 
same disease. Some friends were watching, not speaking to him. 
What cotdd they say ! Turning to the Bev. Mother, he whispered, 
" Better and easier. " We knew it was the ease and improvement which 

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io8 Christmas in the Hospice. 

come to the worn-out life before the end, like the flicker to the dying 
flame. An old inmate sitting by the fire told me he was thirteen 
months in the Hospicey and was several times '' on the point of being 
off with the chest." This was one of his good days, he stated, but still 

he was bad enough. K he was an3rthing like as well as -^— 

there in bed, it's out dancing on the floor he'd be ! Yes, he liked the 
music-box real well, 'cause it had some airs he knew. '' Auld Lang 
Syne," suggested quite a youth, who was sitting beside the old man : 
such a handsome youth ! with large, soft, black eyes. '' Consump- 
tion, too —in fact, nearly all are pulmonaiy cases here," was the answer 
I received to my inquiry. Yet I was shown two or three other cases, 
one of which interested me much — a young lad, paralysed from the 
waist down. He was a great reader, was half through ^' Uncle Tom's 
Cabin," part of which he liked, and part he didn't. 

Every patient greeted my guide with a smile of welcome, and those 
who had strength of voice wished her a happy Christmas, and many 
of them. I remarked how hard it was to know what to say in return. 
No," she said ; " they all understand when I answer, * if God wills, and 
the same to you.' They know life is uncertain to me as well as to all 
others." 

Going out from that ward my heart was torn at the sight of a 
woman weeping by the death-bed of her husband. He was diy-eyed, 
and his breath came qmck and short. The pain was always with him, 
he told us, but it was nothing racking. [ Ji re > I him had he children. 
'< One — a girl of fourteen." The mother said she had been there, but 
she began to cry, and had to leave. Just then the door opened and 
the girl came in again, with only the signs of the tears on her face ; 
but no sooner did she stand at the ' foot of the bed, with her father's 
eyes on hers, than the tears flowed more copiously than ever, and the 
sobs rose higher than before. The mother, who herself was weeping 
bitterly, courageously bade her stop that crying of hers. Poor, poor 
child 1 

I could not witness such grief unmoved; so we quickly left the 
ward with the music faint and sweet, still trembling on the ear, and 
the holly and ivy lending a festive decoration to the place. Young 
men who should be strong — if God willed — (the force of that clause 
I have learned now and for ever) were dying : bread-winners were 
dying, and yet all were resigned. By the old, by the long-suffering, 
we might expect to find a welcome given to death, but not, as we 
found it here, by those who are called with their hands full of un- 
finished work, with families depending on them. This thought struck 
me as we left the room. I could not see clearly how it was the Sisters 
were able, except through a special gift, to teach so thoroughly, when 
it was most difficult to learn : " Not my will, Lord, but thine." 

On the ground floor are also the convent chapel an^ mortuary 

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Christmas in the Hospice. 109 

diapeL The former is an exquisite stracture, the last piece of build- 
iBg BuperinteDded by that wonderful woman, Mrs. Aikenhead, found- 
ress of the Order. It is oroes-shape, with an admirable blending of 
colour and. light from its stained windows. The latter is plain and 
simple, and contains two marble slabs, with marble pillows for the 
bodies which lie there imooffined the usual time. The remains of a 
joung man, a P»>testant, rested there last, a few days ago, and it was 
expected that before the day would be gone a child's form would lie 
on the marble bed. She (the child) was longing to be with Qod for 
Christmas, but she was still on earth. 

Mounting a flight of stairs we came to the part of the Hospice 
deroted to women. In the first ward we f oimd a young girl of eighteen 
in bed. Her face was absolutely joyous as the Reverend Mother 
greeted her with a loving kiss. On her counterpane were scattered 
Christmas cards, and beside her on a stand, were books and little 
presents. She looked so happy that I doubted if anything could add 
to her peace of mind and heart. The empty bed near had held the 
poor dying child until it was thought well to remove her from the 
"Pet of the house,'* as the happy girl was called, into a larger ward. 

The " Pet " told us poor was very near home, told us as calmly 

and cheerfully as though she was glad for her young friend's sake. 
The Sister of the ward then came in and said the same. She, too, 
was bright, and her voice fell on my ear in accents that were as far 
removed from sadness as she herself from sin. '' The Pet is called 
little, but that is all a mistake, for when she gets up she is nearly as 
tall as the bed, and I have to look up to her." Here the Pet laughed 
at the great joke of being able to look down on her dear Sister. 

^3^fir good-bye to her, we followed the nun into St. Joseph's ward 
adjoining. It seemed to me full, and it a was long room. Near the dooT, 
what a sight! The little child— for what else is a girl of fifteen f— 
was dying hard and fast. At one side of the death-bed the poor 
mother was wringing her hands in despair, and talking wildly 
between the gasps of suppressed sobs ; on the other side two brothers 
were crying away piteously. The child herself, a mere skeleton, 
lay with wandering eyes, and mouth open, while the spasms of breath 
almost lifted her up as they came and went. The Beverend Mother 
noiseleedy drew near her, and taking the waisted framework of a 
hand in hers, spoke out clearly : << A little while longer, dear, and then 
with Qod for ever. No pain in heaven. Always Gk)d.'* But the 
earth mother sobbed all the more bitterly when the Sister asked her 

would she grudge dear to the angels for Christmas night. Poor 

thing I she was only an earth mother, and nature is strong there. 
Close by, in the next bed, lay a dying woman completely blind, and 
beyond her others and others, one of whom old, and near release, asked 
me why I looked so sad — there was nothing to fret for there^ 

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I lo Christmas in the Hospice. 

The very welcome presence of a oonyaleBcent met our eyee in this 
ward. There was no hope for her, they said, when she entered, and 
there, now, she was talking of being soon back in the world. Not far 
from her a sufferer was evidently in deep trouble. Her face was 
turned to two men, husband and son, sitting by the bed. On sym- 
pathising with her the poor creature told a sad, sad tale. She had 
just heard that her son-in-law, from whom she was expecting a visit 
was buried in the morning. He was with her well and hearfy, last 
Sunday, met with an accident the day after, and now was in Glaoievin. 
His wife and two little children were left behind, with no one to 
support them but the grandfather, and he had six of his own — there 
was no need to count herself as one— and that made nine, with not 
half enough of work, God help them. The story was sad, heaven 
knows ; the trial too great, one might be tempted to say ; and yet with 
a few words of comfort timely spoken the poor patient was able to 
mutter, ** FU try to bear it ; — ^I'll try. Yes, we might be worse. I'll 
try." All the time the two men sat motionless, not even raising their 
eyes. How these Sisters of Charity know what to say and do when 
we, experienced in the world, are dumb and at our wits' end ! 

The last death-bed we stood by in that room was occupied by a 
widow, who taught me how the poor can deny themselves the little 
they have. In answer to a question from us she said, '* No, she didn't 
expect her son (a little child in an orphanage); they woidd have 
brought him ; but why would she take him away from his companions 
on Christmas Bay; God would keep her, if it was His divine 
will, until next Sunday." In foregoing that visit she gave up her all 
that day. It was a vast deal more than the widow's mite. 

As we left St. Josephs I glanced again at the dying child. She 
was supported in the tender arms of the Sister, who was moistening 
the parched lips with a sponge. It is near, very near, Home 
now. A chill crept over me, and my heart ached for the sorrow at the 
bedside. I knew the mercy of death would ,be a great relief to 
the little one ; but a child's last Christmas here below is anguish far 
more bitter to a mother than the shedding of her life's blood. 

One more ward, St. Baphael's. There, asleep in bed, was a patient, 
and sitting by the fire were three others ; she who was nearest the 
other world was brightest. "It is long coming," she said, "but 
why complain? — it is coming — that is certain." She was always 
gay, she told me, and would have the laugh to the very end. What was 
the use of doing God's will, moaning and groaning ? Indeed, she was 
ashamed of herself for having cried that morning in chapel at the 
Adsste. It was so sad, it always brought the tears down. She didn't 
know what was sad about it. Her husband would be with her in the 
evening. I asked had she*children ? " Tes, two." She, this young, 
emaciated wife and mother was more than I could comprehend. As 

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Christmas in the Hospice. 1 1 1 

liappy, a8 full of life, apparently, as if Qod had given her a lease in 
pexpetnity of both happiness and breath, and yet that was the last 
Christmas Day she would ever shed tears at the Adette. The other two 
smiled as she spoke so cheerfully to us, and one of them said — what I 
fully believe— that she was much worse than she pretended to be. 
Passing back through the corridor, from St. Joseph's ward, came the 
voices of the Sister redting the Litany for the Dying, and of the 
mourners responding through the choking sobs. (At four o'clock it 
was well over with the little child on earth. She had her wish : 
Christmas night with Ood and the angels !) 

A visit to the private rooms for paying patients, the warmest greet- 
ings from them all, and the gentlest resignation eveiywhere. Thus 
ended our rounds. Can I teU what "our rounds" brought me? 
Hardly. I know that then for the first time I felt the wonder that I 
had existed so long unaware of this pitying love, which, like a beacon, 
shows a pathway through the night of Death ; unaware of the sub- 
mission which tl]ds same love inspires around it ; unaware that the last 
Christmas could be made so very, very happy by the lessons of faith, 
the rewards of hope, the Sisters of Charity. I had gone refusing to 
believe that the last Christmas could be one of joy ; I came away con- 
vinced that not only was it one of joy, but ^of a joy with far more of 
heaven in it than earth. 

Thanking my kind guide, I turned homewards; and as I walked 
abng I tried to enumerate the works of charity performed by the 
Sisters of this Order. They were to be found alleviating sorrow, 
relieving pain,and effacing sin, in St. Yincent*s Hospital, Stephen's- 
green; the Convalescent Home, Stillorgan; the Magdalen Asylum, 
Donnybrook ; the Children's Hospital, Temple-street ; St. Monica's 
Home for Aged Matrons, Orenville-street ; ^e Blind Asylum, Mer- 
rion; Stanhope-street Training Schools and Home; Gardiner-street 
Schools for the Poor ; St. Joseph's Orphanage, Mountjoy -street ; 
through the back streets, in the tenements of the neglected and cast- 
away; and, above all^ in the Hospice, Harold's Cross. With this 
limitleBs field of action before me, my heart rose in gratitude on behalf 
of the city of Dublin, and I gave glory to Ood in the highest for the 
noble Sisters of Charity whom He has placed in our midst. 



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NEW BOOKS. 

I. Ifutituiionei Theolo^iea in usum Sehohrum. Auciore Joskpho 
SJ.EUTOBN, S.J., uDOcoLxxzi. Batiflboiiae, Neo Eboraoi, et Gincin- 
natii, sumptibus Friderici Pustet, S. Sedis Apostolicse l^rpographi. 

The great eodesiaBtical publisher, Frederic Pustet, who commands 
both Uie Old and the New world from his establishments in Batisbon, 
New York, and Cincinnati, has with his usual promptness forwarded 
for review the first volume of a new course of theology, which is sure 
to attain very wide circulation. We all know the impulse that has 
been given to theological studies by our Sovereign Pontiff Leo XIII. 
and the special bent which his Holiness has impressed upon them. 
Father Kleutgen, who is already well-known in the learned world by 
his works on philosophy, dedicates his present labours by permission 
to the Holy Father. Only his first volume ** De Deo Vho et Trino^"^ 
has appeared ; but his preface shows the plan of his entire course. 
Amongst other questions he discusses in his preface why the Summa 
of St. Thomas cannot itself be made a text-book without such ad- 
ditions and omissions as would make it another work ; and he proves 
that this is so from the nature of theology, and from the example of 
Gk)net and Billuart, who were most of all disposed to keep as closely 
as possible to their mighiy master. 

A useful practical item in Father Xleutgen's arrangement of 
matter is that he gives at the beginning of each article a distinct 
reference to the parallel passage in St. Thomas, and the Master of 
the Sentences; and, as the greatest theologians have thrown their 
treatises into the form of commentaries on either of these theological 
giants, the student is thus at once in a position to consult these high 
authorities on each separate question that comes under discussion. 

Father Kleutgen of course incorporates all the definitions of the 
recent Vatican Council which bear on his theses. There is a certain 
advantage in the circumstance of his being a German, which, perhaps, 
will make his expositions clearer and more acceptable to students of 
those northern races who have a lurking suspicion of the Ciceronian 
fluency {ns dicam long-windedness) of the theologians who pride them- 
selves on being Cicero's countrymen. 

IL Sun and Snow, A Christmas Story for Young and Old. Bt 
Stdkey Stabb. (Dublin: M. H. Qill & Son. 1882). 
Lady Moboak was nie Sydney Owenson ; and ** Baby Sidney," who 
was introduced to our readers on New Year's Day, and with whom 
they are likely to become better acquainted through " The Monk's 
Prophecy," during the next twelve months— Baby Sidney is certainly 

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Nem Books. 113 

a young lady. On the other hand Sydney Herbert was a man — and 
a Tery good one, of a much more religions mind than the Bey. Sidney 
Smith. In spite, however, of this epioene gender of the name, we 
need not pretend to be in doubt as to the pronouns which ought to 
stand for the author of '* Sun and Snow." Editors know things which 
are known to few ; but it is known to many that this new star is of 
the same sex as the nearest and brightest of our planets. Indeed 
there are many characteristics of the little book itself which woidd 
lead us to attribute it to a woman. Flimsiness of purpose is not one 
of these. Bather we blame it for being too serious. We should have 
preferred to have it either more superficial or more thorough. It 
alludes to very profoimd questions, which seem out of place in *' a 
Christmas story for young and old." If theology or philosophy be 
introduced — and it is ha^ to keep them out if one treats of the 
realities of life— we should like the allusions to be firmer and more 
definite. 

There is a good deal of variety in the incidents and scenery of the 
story, all confined within our own little island, from Upper Mount- 
street, Dublin, to the Oorkscrew-road and the CHiffs of Moher. The 
authoress has bestowed commendable pains on her style, and it is 
almost a praiseworthy fault that there seems to be too apparent a striv- 
ing after originality, cleverness, picturesqueness. '* Sydney Starr" 
belongs to her age ; but Oliver Ooldsmith and Nathaniel Hawthorne 
are safer models than some of the jerky writers of the day. 

m. Tk^ Household Book of CalhoUe Poets. Edited by Eliot Bydbr. 
(Notre Dame : J. A. Lyons.) 

LuxTTBioxTB paper, elegant type, red-lined borders, gilt edges, massive 
binding — this is one of those Catholic books which could not be 
produced in these countries, but only in the Oreat Bepublic. The 
contents are worthy of such fair outward show. It does not purport 
to be a library of religious poetry, but rather a collection of mimdane 
poetry by Catholic writers. We shall hereafter refer to some omissions, 
while fully granting beforehand that in the execution of such a design 
there must needs be omissions. But at present, before beginning to 
call the attention of our readers to the rich treasures here amassed for 
their benefit, we deem it right to disown all claim to two or three very 
beautiful things contained in this volume. It is a mistake to place 
Dante Gabriel Bossetti among Oatholic poets, and, still more, his 
sister, Christina Bossetti. Their father, a '^modern" Italian, was, 
we suppose, a nominal Catholic ; but their English mother brought up 
at least her daughters Protestants. Would that Christina Bossetti 
were of the same faith as Adelaide Procter and Ellen Downing. Her 
religious poetry would then be even more beautiful than it is. 

The compiler of this volume, Mr. Eliot Byder, is no kinsman of the 

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114 Pigeonhole Paragraphs. 

biilliant Oratorian theologian of Edgbaston. He is an American ; and, 
as he has contributed to our own pages, some of our readers will thank 
us for informing them, on the authority of the work under review, that 
he was bom in Massachusetts in 1856, the son of a Unitarian clergy- 
man, and that he became a Oatholic some years ago. 

Some brief biographical details of this kind are furnished of nearly 
all the poets represented in this volume— -which, we are glad to add 
here, is offered to the public in a garb less splendid, and therefore 
less costly, than that which the opening words of this notice describe. 

Beginning with old Chaucer, this collection gives samples of all 
GathoHc poets down to the present time. It by no means excludes 
contemporaries. Naturally the transatlantic living bards are more 
amply represented than those who live on this side of the big pond. 
The contemporary Europeans who figure here are Denis Florence Mac- 
Carthy, Aubrey De Vere, Sir Charles Oavan Duffy, Cardinal Kewman, 
Coventry Patmore, Eev. C. P. Meehan, Bev. Matthew Russell, S.J. and 
(by mistake) the two Bossettis. Of Hie extant American and Irish- 
American Catholics, whose verses are enshrined in this dainty reliquaxy, 
we have many others besides Father Abram Byan, Maurice £gan, 
Daniel Connolly, Eleanor Donnelly, Harriet Slddmore, John Boyle 
O'Reilly, Robert Joyce, Elizabeth Waylen, and several names beginning 
with the Celtic 0, among whom we notice a Canadian, with the historic 
name of Thomas O'Hagan. 

We must reserve for our next Kumber further remarks on this 
delightful volume, as well as notices of ''Leaves from the Annals 
of the Sisters of Mercy," the first part of the " Life of Father Augustus 
Law, S.J.," Miss Stewart's " Stories of the Christian Schools," " The 
Scholastic Annual" for 1882-— which has come to us with "A merry 
Christmas and a happy New Tear," from Notre Dame University, 
Indiana—** Out in the Cold World," by M. F. S., a new and enlarged 
edition of Father Meehan's ** Confederation of Kilkenny," and some 
other recent publications. 



PIGEONHOLE PARAGRAPHS. 

Onb of the most brilliant paragraphs in Sir Charles Gavan Duffy's in- 
troduction to his famous '* Ballad Poetry of Ireland '* — which has run 
through some forty or fifty editions — is devoted to Thomas Moore. It 
ends by saying that ** Moore, like Caesar's illustrious rival, extended 



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Pigeonhole Paragraphs. 115 

his oonqnests to the ends of the earth, while there were still tracts at 
home which escaped the sway of his imperial mind." We have been 
reminded of this remark while reading in the daily and weekly news- 
papers an account of the honours bestowed by the Spanish people on 
our own poet, Denis Florence MacCarthy. We greatly fear that many 
eyen of our readers have not off by heart those " Summer Longings/' 
which we know better as ** Waiting for the May." We hereby register 
a TOW to render such ignorance impossible, by devoting some of our 
earliest pages to the poetiy of this true poet. 

Mr. Denis Florence MacCarthy has lately received the following 
letter, with the Medal of Calderon alluded to, from his Excellency the 
Karquis do Casa Laiglesia, Spanish Ambassador in London : — 

" Legadon de Espana en Londres, 

" December^ 1881. 

«SlB, 

" I haye much pleasure in forwarding to you by to^ ''ay's post a medal struck 
in oommemoration of Calderon's bicentenary, which the Spanish Royal Academy h%?e 
decided to bestow upon you as a token of their gratitude and their appreciation of 
your tnmalation of the great Poet's works. 

" I am, Sir, 
" Your obedient serrant, 

'* Marquis db Casa Laiolbsia." 

The medal is a fine work of art, the great poet being represented in 
full relief in the habit of a Knight of Santiago. It may be mentioned 
that Mr. MacCarthy had previously been elected a Corresponding 
Member of the Boyal Spanish Academy. The beautifully engraved 
diploma sent to him on the occasion is in the following words : — 

'* Real Academia de la Historia. 
** La Beal Academia de la Historia en su junta de 1 de Octubre, 1880, ha admitido 
«n la daae de Correspondientes extrangeros al Senor Denis florencio MacCarthy en 
atCDcion a concurrir en el la intruccion litteraria y las demas circumstancias que pre- 
ftcriben loe Estatutos. 

"En testimonio de la cual mando expedirle est titulo sellado con su sello mayor. 
Madrid, 2 de Octubre, de 1880. 

*' AuRBLiAHO F. GuERRA, Director 
** Maitukl CoIiUArio, Censor, 
" Pedro de Mxdraza, Secretario,'^ 
[The Great Seal of the Academy.] 

In a little paper on Rosa Eerrucci, in the Number of this Magazine 
which appeared in June, 1880, we mentioned that we had been obliged 
to found the sketch on a little French work of Abb^ Ferreyve and on 
a Ltthlin Review article, not having been able to produce the Italian 
work, *^ Rosa Ferrucci e alcuni suoi Scritti, publicati per cura di sua 
lladre." An unknown friend, seeing this, sent us most kindly from 

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1 1 6 Pigeonhole Paragraphs, 

Southamptom the work in question. If it had been originally in our 
hands, our account of this beautiful soid would have been much fuller ; 
but at present we can only set ourselves right on one important point. 
We guessed as the date of Rosa's birth the year 1 840, or two years 
earlier. As a fact, she was bom into this valley of tears (her mother 
tells us), smiling, not weeping, on the evening of the second of July, 
1835 ; so that la mia Rosa was nearly twenty- two years old when she 
died. 

A kind friend in Australia offered lately to send me what she very 
properly called an exquisite poem on St Mary Magdalen, beginning : — 

** On the bright sboree of Lake Genneearetb, 
Walkf Magdalen in f ettiTal arraj ; 
Her waring hair, as golden as the light, 
In soft abundance wreaths her haughty head. 
Her neck is bare and jewelled to the throat/' &c. 

Why, said I to myself, we have too much of our own — and this piece 
itself is our own. It is by Miss Attie O'Brien, and it appeared in our 
own pages a year or two ago. Yet I pored over the index of each of 
our last four or five volumes, and could find no trace of this piece. 
After a fruitless search through the bound volumes I referred to the 
separate monthly parts, and discovered it in the Number for July, 
1878. It ought to be found in the Table of Contents of Volume the 
Sixth, page 385 ; but I regret to say that it has been omitted. 

You remember the old story about the man'who boasted that the 
king himself had actually spoken to him, when on cross-examination 
it was ascertained that the sole observation his majesty had addressed 
to the man was : ** Get out of my way, you rascal !" It may not seem 
much of a compliment that the leading journal of Scotland, The 8eoU- 
mm, paid to our Magazine in reviewing the December Number ; but 
we quote the notice for the sake of the unfavourable as well as the 
favourable part, though the present pen is responsible for one of the 
things complained of. Discriminating blame is a truer compliment 
than indiscriminate praise. " The Irish Monthly (says this canny 
critic), still maintains the characteristics which have so far secured it a 
favoured place among the few magazines written specially for Roman 
Catholics. The current [December] Number is not, however, an espe- 
cially good one. It is relieved from dulness mainly by a paper on 
Eobert de' Nobili, the Jesuit missionary to the Brahmans in the early 
days of the Society of which he was a particularly prominent member. 
The two papers which commemorate the recent JCJolden Jubilee of the 
Order of the Sisters of Mercy are not equal to the occasion, which, to 
English-speaking Eomau Catholics, was one of very special interest.*' 



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THE MONK'S PEOPHECY. 

A TALB. 
BY ATTIB o'bRIEN. 

CHAPTER VI. 

THE PROPHECY. 

Twelve years rolled by, making no change in the lives of those at 
Castleishen. A few gprey streaks were visible in Mrs. Ormsby's brown 
hair, and Sydney had grown a tall, slight girl, with a promise of extreme 
beauty. Her hair was abundant, and as golden as a new coin ; her eyes 
were as blue as a summer sky, while dark lashes and eyebrows gave^ 
that look of character to her face which is often lacking in the fair 
type. She was like her mother in disposition, gentle and loving. 

The Hut had become just like the cottages one sees in pictures or 
reads of in books : roses, ivy, westeria, and japonica covered the walls 
up to the thatched roof. The flower-beds were a mass of bloom, 
rifled of their sweetness by the humming bees, who bore away their 
treasures into the hives ranged in a sunny corner. 

Mrs. Hassett, in her occasional visits to CastleiBhen, wondered how 
Mrs. Ormsby could endure the monotony of her existence ; but to the 
widow time passed away like a dream, and it was only a look or a 
remark of Sydney's that sometimes startled her into the consciousness 
that the years were passing with stealthy footsteps, and that her most 
cherished flower was no longer in bud, but breaking into fuller and 
more perfect luxuriance. 

Mrs. Wyndill's visits were, of necessity, few and far between; 
she had gone to Indula with her husband, who was Qovernor there, 
and only returned at long intervals. She had several children, and 
they were all at Castleishen now ; they had come to see the old place 
and the old people, and to breathe a little of the home freshness, the 
remembrance of which would be pleasant in foreign fields. 

Major MacMahon, the eldest son, his wife, and boy, were also there ; 
and the Hassetts came from Dublin for a few days. It was the last 
time the father and mother saw their children and children's children 
gathered together. 

Eustace was home from college, a fine young fellow of nineteen. 
He was going in for the Civil Service, and was to go out to the 
Wyndills after a time. He and Sydney were the ringleaders of the 
young people. Having been so much together in their childhood, 
there was a strong attachment between them, and they communicated 
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1 1 8 The Monk's Prophecy. 

their ideas to each other on everything and every one, with the most 
absolute f ranknesa 

One afternoon they all assembled in the lone and lovely woods of 
Rathmoylan, which lay about two miles to the south of Castleishen. 
The road to it lay along by the river, and at length wound in through 
the wood, where great trees clasped their giant arms above, making a 
long, green archway. Occasionally one came to massive iron gateways 
that were only opened at rare intervals. 

The Earl of Rathmoylan, who usually resided in one of his English 
or Scotch castles, was an elderly unmarried man, supposed to be a 
little eccentric, and enormously wealthy. He was a stranger in 
Ireland, taking, like too many of his class, name and money from it to 
spend elsewhere. 

The EarPs housekeeper, Mrs. Gale, widow of a former rector of the 
parish, was of much more importance than the Earl himself. She had her 
handsome suite of rooms, entertained her friends, and was entertained 
by them, after the same fashion as when she was mistress of the glebe. 
The demesne was kept in perfect order; but as no one had 
admittance without intermission from Mrs. Gale or the steward, it was 
as lonely as the enchanted castle of the White Cat. Like every 
remote, uninhabited old place, it abounded in ghostly legends. In 
ancient times a woman had drowned herself in the river, and ever after 
her wraith was supposed to appear at the bridge, and lure men on by the 
beauty of her face, until she dissolved into the mists of Poulanass. Woe 
to him who had an evil heart in his bosom ! He never spoke again. 
Prosaic natures who, like Mr. Gradgrind, have an appetite for facts, 
accounted for the accidents that occurred, by discussing the ugly 
turn in the road, and the tendency that individual human nature has, 
being composed of bibulous clay, to imbibe more moisture, on market 
days, than is compatible with steady progression. 

While the young people gathered sticks to make a fire, and pre- 
pared for a gipsy tea, the elders sat together under the trees, the 
broken sunlight falling on them while they talked of the past and 
future. 

** Cbunsellor " Hassett was on circuit. He was a hard-working 
and successful man. A thoughtful observer would say that his hard 
work and its result were necessary, for the garments of his wife and 
children cost a good deal. Mental exertion was requisite to keep the 
silk and velvet trappings fresh to flaunt in the critical eyes of the 
fashionable world; and the fashionable world saw more of his 
family than was seen by the velvet and silk winner, who could rarely 
spare a day from his business for wandering in the green wood. 

All the children were healthy and handsome, except the only son 
of Major MacMahon, the future heir of Castleishen. He was about 
sixteen, and so fragile, that he had to be drawn about in a bath chair. 

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The Monk's Prophecy. 1 19 

He was now looking down at the fire Sydney was fanning with her 
hat, making a picture of her : for the boy had the mind of an artist 

"I cannot make it light, Eustace/' she said, lifting her flushed 
face, and flinging back her sunny curls. '^ Blow it with your mouthy 
can't you?' 

" I put all the breath I had into that last song," answered Eus- 
tace, '' but here goes in the cause of the ' cup that cheers.' " He flung 
himself down, and blew so vigorously that in a few moments tongues 
of flame licked the withered wood, and it broke into a blaze. 

" That's lovely," said Sydney ; '' now I'll mind it, Eustace, and let 
you go fill the kettle, and call to the others to bring more sticks. I am^ 
sure they are down by the stream." 

*' Does Eustace do everything you ask him P" said Geoflry McMahon, 
raising himself in his chair. 

" No, indeed, he doesn't; he makes me do twice as much," replied 
Sydney ; '* but he used to carry me on his back when I was very little \ 
we had no one to play with but each other when we were young, you 
know." 

''He is very strong," said the boy, sadly. ''What a wonderful 
thing it must be not to feel your body a dead weight, as if it were 
dragging after your soid." 

•* But you will be strong yet, Geoff," answered the girl, " and you 
will be a grand person then, because you will be dever as well as 
strong. Mamma says delicate people are often the cleverest. Which 
would you rather be, clever or strong?" 

"Pd rather be dever," said the boy, after a pause; " but it is a 
lovely thing to be able to go about without help, Sydney. I long to 
dimb mountains, and to stand on the brink of great diffs over the sea. 
Oh, I pine and fret; then I make beautifid pictures in my mind, and 
in trying to draw them out and make them visible I forget everything 
and am happy." 

"I'm not a bit dever, Geoff," answered Sydney; "I don't know 
how you can make such pictures out of your head. But, G^off, I'd be 
you a thousand times rather than Georgy Hassett. What is the use of 
being strong if one isn't nice ? Wasn'the very rudecoming along P asking 
you to run races, and telling me I was an old pensioner ; I had a great 
mind to complain of him to Eustace, only telling stories is mean;* Oh, 
here's the kettle." 

"Yes, here's the kettle," said Eustace, " fresh from the pdludd 
spring. Only one frog and a million of insects in it. Boiled frog, 
Sydney, is capital as a relish." 

"Ah, Eustace, hold your tongue; you did not put a frog in it," 
said Sydney, taking off the lid, and looking carefuUy in ; "of course, 
you did not. There's nothing in it," and she hung it over the fire. 

"I wish you had a microscope," answered Eustace, "and light 

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1 20 The Monk's Prophecy. 

would be let in on your ignorance. Haiiy and many-legg^ monfiters 
of the deep |are disporting in that unconscious kettle, and will soon 
be food for your depraved appetite." 

« " Stop, Eustace, you're always saying something horrible," said 
Sydney. " Geoff, did you ever hear of the curse of Rathmoylan ? It 
is a grand ghosUy story, but we should be at the druid's altar, or in 
the haunted gallery to tell it. The kettle is boiling now; call the 
otherB, Eustace. Mother is best to make the tea." 

When the tea was made and drunk, and the children could eat no 
more, the spirit of motion again possessed them, and they proposed to 
go to the house. 

''Let us go to the druid's altar first," said Sydney, " 'tis the nicest 
place in the wholefood, and if you make no noise, we shall see dozens 
of rabbits.'' 

" And we might find one of the druid's golden sickles in the grass," 
said Eustace, " and immolate some of the rabbits on the altar. I'll 
be the chief priest. Who'll go in for the situation of priestess ? Ettie 
is a blood-thirsty young woman. Eh, Ettie, will you imbrue your 
innocent hands in gore on this festive occasion ? Here, young ones, 
clear out of the way ; I'll wheel on Geoff ; we can get to tiie house by 
the altar." 

They wandered on through 'the cool green woods, the rabbits 
scampered across the pathway, the ring-doves|cooed, the thrushes sang, 
and the children woke the echoes with their joyous laughter. When 
they had sufficiently examined the cromleach, tibiey went on to the house 
and found the elders waiting at the door for them. 

Krs. Ghde, the housekeeper, received them, and after some pleasant 
conversation proceeded to show them through the house. There were 
noble rooms, hung with fine pictures; the "furniture was nearly a 
century old. On one side the river flowed beneath the windows, while 
from the others could be seen velvet slopes and wooded heights ; great 
copper beeches standing out in sombre beauty against the emerald 
sheen of forest trees, and graceful deer roaming about at their own 
wild will. 

''What a grand old place!" said Mr. Wyndill, looking out upon 
the river; " what a wonder it is the Earl does not come over, Mrs. 
Gale.** 

" I suppose he inherits his family's prejudice," replied Mrs. Gale. 
" They never liked the place." 

" Was there any cause for it?" he asked. 

" Well, in the first instance there was, but it is now too remote a 
one to affect later generations." 

'* I have a pleasant recollection of the last earl," said Winifred. 
" He gave a ball ; — do you remember, it was my first one ? I shoidd 
like to know what kind his cousin is." 

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The MonKs Prophecy. i a i 

" He intended coming Beveral times, it was said," answered Mrs. 
Gale, " but he never came. He is not young, I believe, and is un- 
married. I get brief communications from him now and then.^' 

*'But what was the cause of the dislike you mentioned ?" asked 
Mr. VyndiU. 

'' It is an old story of nearly a hundred years ago," she replied, 
'* a sad story of family disunion. It was said the youngest and favour- 
ite son of Earl George married a young girl who was living with his 
mother as companion. The boy was very delicate, and in a terrible 
aoene with his father he burst a blood-vessel and died. 

" And what became of the girl V 

" She died also, poor thing, leaving an infant son. When I was a * 
girl, I knew people who remembered him. He used to come here for 
his vacations. He was carefully educated ; but he was never acknow- 
ledged by the family. I don't know what became of him afterwards. 
If he had been his father's heir, he would have had a fine fortune, and 
some say the father was really married, by an old friar ; but, of course, 
that marriage was not legal . Earl George went away after the death 
of the boy, and there was very little seen of the family since. The 
place is kept up, I suppose, because they take their title ftom it." 

"Since then the house got the name of being haunted?" said 
Mrs. Hassett '' I shouldn't mind a few ghosts if I had such a place. 
What a room to give a ball !" 

"I have never seen anything supernatural," replied Mrs. Gale, 
" but there was always a great objection to sleep in the room in which 
Charles Butler didd. Poor boy, it would be a heavy penance for his 
love-dream if he had to be wandering about it still. It was converted 
into a lumber room long before my time. My husband used to hear 
queer stories from an old man who lived here, when he first came to 
the parish, and who firmly believed in the noises and apparitions." 

" And what were the stories ?" asked Mr. Wyndill. 

" We should have a winter's night for a ghost story,'' said Mrs. 
Oale, smiling; ''but this one was believed in at the time, certainly; 
the history of the disturbance was written, and attested by several 
respectable men. It was said that one fine moonlight night, very soon 
after the death of the boy and girl lovers, a carriage was heard driving 
rapidly up the avenue ; it stopped at the hall-door, and the bell rang 
violently. The old lord was expecting his eldest son, and he went into 
the hall to receive him. He was a very impetuous, quick old man, and 
he was at the door as soon as the servant. When it was opened, to 
their extreme astonishment, there was no carriage to be seen, but, both 
said, an icy air pressed against them, and two impalpable, shadowy 
figures glided by them and flitted up the grand staircase. That night 
noises commenced, and stories, without end, got into circulation. 
Indeed, I knew a gentleman myself who slept here in the late earl's 

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1 22 The Monks Prophecy. 

time, and he told me he heard the noises distinctly. One night he was 
lying awake, after going to bed about twelve o'clock, when, suddenly, 
the ligh*t of a very bright fire was obscured, and there was a sound of 
sobbing and moaning. He sat up in bed, but the next moment the 
shadows passed from before the fire, and it shone clear again. A bang 
came on the door ; he sprang up and fiung it open ; there was nothing 
to be seen but the pale gleam of a winter* s moon lighting up the long 
corridor. He saw nothing, as I tell you, but something walked down 
before him, and gave a bang to every door as it passed. He followed 
it down the staircase, the hall-door was fiung open, was slapped in his- 
face, and when he tried to open it again, he found it was bolted and 
barred." 

'* By Jove, that was something to send him back to his bed in a 
speculative mood," said Mr. Wyndill. " Did he tell you how many 
glasses of punch he drank that same night P" 

** He was a very temperate man," said Mrs. Oale, " and neither 
imaginative nor a believer in ghosts. He told it to me in a very 
matter-of-fact way, when we chanced to speak of the family history." 

''I would not sleep alone here for all the world," said Mrs. 
Hassett. *' I suppose people are fated not to be comfortable any- 
where.*' 

''It was a sad romance for the two young people," said Mrs. Ormsby. 
•* It did not last long." 

'* Perhaps it was just as well for them," said Mrs. Hassett *' If 
they had lived to have children to provide for, it would take the 
romance out of them. Children now-a-days are a dreadful charge. 
There's Sydney, nearly as tall as yourself ; and my Winnie, and even 
Ettie, see what they will be in a couple of years ; and dressing and 
bringing them out costs so much." 

Mrs. Ormsby sighed. " Gk>d will provide for them," she said. 

'^ Oh, that's very fine, and true, of course ; but girls without good 
fortunes have a bad chance of getting well married. Men won't think 
of anyone that is not able to help them on in their career." 

'' 'Tis too soon for us to assume the r6U of match-making mothers," 
said Mrs. Wyndill. " I am not uneasy about my little Ettie yet." 

''Mrs. Hassett evidently relishes the first part of St. Paul's sentence," 
said her husband, laughing. ''She is satisfied that in marrying her 
daughter she is doing well, and doesn't want to do better. It is very 
complimentaiy to my sex. But, Mrs. Gale, was there no trace of the 
orphan son of Charles Butler ?" 

'* There was no one interested in him," she answered, "but the old 
friar who used to say he married his father and mother. He was very 
eccentric, I believe ; as much a pilgrim as a friar. He lived in the 
old abbey of Inmstubber ; he had a cell opening on the graveyard, 
and they said he was very holy. The oountr^ people had great faith 



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The Monks Prophecy. 1 23 

in his prayers. Young Mojlan, as he was called, used to be constantly 
with him, and was there alone with him when the old man died. The 
boy was about sixteen yeai*s of age then. It was said he had one inter- 
view with his grandfather, who happened to be here at the time, and 
that he would have taken him up if he became a Protestant He was 
a bigoted old gentleman. But it seems they did not agree, for the 
boy went away and was heard of no more. The earl was greatly in- 
censed about the prophecy." 

" Whose was tiie prophecy ?" 

*' father Ambrose's. Ue was a poet as well as a prophet; he 
nsed to repeat it in all the farm-houses he lodged in, and had it 
written on a piece of paper, and wafered on the wall of his cell." 

" And the boy took it, I suppose, if it were connected with his 
stoiy." 

*' Yes, it related to him, but he did not take it ; it remained there 
for some time, until Lord Bathmoylan heard of it. He went there one 
day alone, and some islanders, who had the curiosity to watch him, 
went into the cell after he left, and found the prophecy was gone." 

"How did it run?" 

" That the boy or his posterity would come in for their rightful in- 
heritance. The words are these : — 

"When right sees light, Maud Morley's blood 
Shall run in the heirs of Rathinoylan Wood ; 
The seed shall live though the flowers decay, 
And right sees light in a cooiing day. 

" Maud Morley was the name of the girl; Father Ambrose wanted 
to have her buried with Charles Butler, but it would not be 
allowed. He then had her grave dug dose to the Bathmoylan 
tomb, and cursed anyone who should disturb her remains. There are 
many stories connected with the family, but this one has the greatest 
hold on the people's mind, because of the prophecy." 

"Did neither of Charles Butler's brothers do anything for the 
unfortunate boy ?" asked Mr. WyndilL 

" I never heard they did^ I believe he left the country altogether 
after the friar's death." 

" Oh, what was to be done ?" said Mrs. Hasset ; " they couldn't ac- 
knowledge such a person, and one like him clings on so persistently if 
he get any encouragement. Better put your foot on such a thing at 
once." 

*' But the chances are the father was rightly married," said Mr. 
Wyndill. " Of course it would not be legal if only the friar performed 
the ceremony ; but it was hard on the poor boy." 

" Likely the brothers only thought of themselves," observed Mrs. 
Wyndill, " and divided Benjamin's portion between them." 

"Well, I take practical views," answered Mrs. Hassett "and I 

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1 24 The Monks Prophecy. 

think it would be rather a hardship to see the Bathmoylan money go- 
ing to Maud Morlej's son. The idea of his haying a marriage of 
any kind with such a person ! It couldn't be tolerated." 

"I don't know on earth where you got your worldly nature, 
Carrie," said Mrs. Wyndill; **it makes one melancholy to listen to 
you ; you don't look to the good or the evil of anything, but only to 
the appearance it will have in the eyes of the world." 

" Oh, you haye everything you want," answered Mrs. Hassett ; 
" you need not struggle for a place in the world ; if you were the wife 
of a professional man, you would know the difPerence. 'Tis no easy 
thing to make five hundred a year appear as if it were a thousand." 

" I would not attempt it,'' said Mrs. Wyndill, as she sat beside 
Mrs. Ormsby, in one of the deep windows looking out on the river. 
'' How handsome Sydney is growing," she said in a low tone, as the 
children entered, " she is the fiower of the Castleishen fiock." 

** She is growing up," said the mother, slowly. 

^'' And she is such a sweet-mannered girl ; you must have taken 
great pains with her, Helen, to have her so well-educated without the 
aid of any other teacher." 

'' I wish she had more advantages," said Mrs. Ormsby, sighing ; 
' ' I'm afraid I am but a poor teacher of accomplishments. I should like 
to have her well-instructed ; an education is an independence." 

" There is no fear of Sydney's future ; she will be good and lovely," 
answered Mrs. Wyndill. 

'' According to Carrie no one wants poor people, Winnie. Her 
worldly wisdom and tiiat old tragic story have somehow saddened me. 
That poor boy lost in the world's wilds, you may say ; the father gone 
first, like Sydney's — ^then the mother : it set me thinking what would 
become of her if I died." 

" But you are not going to die, Helen. If one were to grieve for 
unhappy possibilities, no one would be tranquil for a moment. Qod 
is directing our lives ; we are blind and cannot see where the path 
leads in which we walk. Disappointments often prove to be blessings 
in disguise. I want to have a quiet talk with you when I can get 
an opportunity." 

CHAPTER Vn. 

A QUIET TALK. 

Thb sinking sun was burnishing the tree-tops, and throwing lines of 
light across the broad bosom of the river, when the party turned their 
steps homewards. Even though the salt be forgotten, Uie ants creep 
about your legs, your best boots be scraped by brambles, the tea 
be smoked, and a shower of rain comes down, what well-served 
dinner, handed about by gloved lackeys, equals the enjo^^ent of a 

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The Monks Prophecy. 125 

picnic in tlie green wood, beside the rush of running waters ? Is there 
any sentient being under twenty, so perverted in his instincts as to 
prefer the cushioned ease of the dining-room? Is there anyone over 
twenty, retaining his vitality and capacity for enjoying other pleasures 
beside gastronomic ones, who does not relish one vagabond day, 
remote from the awful decorum of civilisation, and eat his sandwich, 
and drink his cold punch with a stimulated appetite— face to face 
with nature ? Who remembers dinner-parties ? — who forgets picnics? 

When the party arrived at the gate leading up to the Hut, Mrs. 
Wyndill said she wanted no further dinner, and would go in for an 
hour with Mrs. Ormsby ; they would both walk up across the fields by- 
and-by for their tea — let Sydney go on with the young people. The 
pony-trap, which was brought to pick up any weary wajrfarers, was on 
before filled with children, and a servant drove Geoff *s bath-chair. 
" Veiy well, but don't be late, Winnie, or I'll come and fetch you," 
said Mr. Wyndill, 

Mr& Hassett had a certain undefined jealousy of her sister's affec- 
tion for the widow. She herself never cared for her at any time ; the 
fact of her misfortunes was quite sufficient to check her affections \ 
though, indeed, it is to be questioned whether Mrs. Hasset had any 
capacity for affection at aU. She would lead an inaccurate observer 
of human nature to believe that she was a devoted wife and mother ; 
but, as a matter of fact, husband and children were only so much 
material with which to build her fashionable fortress. She never 
brooded with maternal tenderness over the personalities, the child- 
natures, the fresh, immortal souls of her little ones ; she recognised no 
distinctive characteristics, no significant traits, no tiny impulses that 
indicated the future man or woman ; they were all merely more or 
less troublesome, more or less good-looking ; and her one thought 
about them was to see them in a position that would reflect honour on 
herself. As to their souls, and the possible effect of the world, the 
flesh, and the devil on them, she took it for granted they would con- 
duct themselves properly, and have an excellent time of it hereafter. 
Who could fancy a pretty girl in the best society, dressed in soft tulle, 
and adorned with lilies, deserving of reprobation ? Or a handsome, 
frank young fellow, with white gloves on his hands, and a bouquet in 
his button-hole ? One naturally associates the lower regions with the 
back slums, where pickpockets and poverty most do congregate ; and 
certainly eternity was a subject that never caused Mrs. Hassett any 
spiritual discomfort. 

Mrs. Hassett, as I have said, differed from her sister, and took 
her own views of Mrs. Ormsby. She liked to consider her as some- 
thing of a dependent — a position which was quite ideal. The widow 
paid her rent with punctuality, and the many little things which wore 
sent to her from Castleishen might have been sent to any wealthy 



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1 26 The Monk's Prophecy. 

neighbour with whom they liked to keep on friendly relations. Mrs. 
Hassett, however, could not believe but that she was rather a drag on 
her parents ; which was only to be tolerated because of her use to 
them in their old age. And truly Mrs. Ormsby gave them the love 
and devotion of a daughter, as their unvarying affection deserved. 

Mrs. Hassett had not been to Castleishen for a couple of years 
before this family gathering, consequently was not prepared for the 
change they made in Sydney. "I suppose we shall have Eustace 
falling in love with that penniless girl," she remarked to Mrs. 
Wyndill. " It is a great mistake to have a girl like that just at your 
door, with an idle young man hanging about ; they will think it their 
bounden duty to be sentimental.'* 

*' Eustace is anything but an idle young man," said Mrs. Wyndall. 
'^ Arthur is greatly pleased with him ; and he looks on Sydney as if 
she were his sister." 

**0h, we know how that sort of brotherly love turns out," said 
Mrs. Hassett. " I don't believe in those platonic affections. What a 
nice thing it would be if he got into any entanglement ! He will find 
it hard enough to get on even with Arthur's patronage ; if he have 
sense, there is no fear but he can make a desirable marriage, he is 
so goodlooking. I wonder what will Helen do with the girl — educate 
her for a governess, I suppose ? " 

'' I hope there will be no occasion to send the poor child out to 
earn her bread," said Mrs. Wyndill, moving away ; " and * sufficient 
for the day is the evil thereof.' " 

After all the others had passed on to Castleishen, Mrs. Wyndill and 
Mrs. Ormsby entered the Hut, Nellie put on the kettle immediately to 
prepare a cup of tea for them. The widow drew a little table to the 
end window, and the friends sat down with a pleasant sensation of 
rest 

" How peaceful it is here, Helen," said Mrs. WyndiU, looking out 
on the waterfall. " No wonder your face has remained so serene." 

''I have had an untroubled life here for all those years, a very 
untroubled life, thank Ood. My child made all my happiness. But 
she is no longer a child, Winnie." 

" No, but changing into a lovely girl, Helen. That is nothing to 
sigh for." 

"Do you know," — ^Mrs. Ormsby's eyes filling with tears, — "some- 
times I wish she were not so remarkable-looking. Everyone is be- 
ginning to speak of her. If she have to earn her bread, Winnie, it 
will be no advantage ; and I suppose she must. She will have nothing 
when I am gone." 

'' Dear Helen, it is God who will provide for her, and not you. Do 
you think He loves her less than you do ? But, indeed, I know it 
requires a wonderful faith to keep a mother's heart untroubled." 

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The Monk's Prophecy, 127 

'' Ohy dear Winnie, it does ; a divine faith. I tremble when I think 
of my innocent Sydney, alone and poor in a wicked, world ; and you 
will be 80 far away. Not that I feel any symptoms of decay yet/' she 
added, trying to smile. 

" Dearest Helen* that is what I want to speak to you about to-night. 
Yon are to make your mind easy about Sydney. If you died this 
moment, she would be as one of my children. I think you would trust 
her to me. But you are not going to die, please Ood, but to liye to 
see her happily provided for." 

" Indeed, I would trust my darling to you, Winnie. I know you 
would do your best for her ; and, with the help of God, I will be 
spared. But sometimes I get disheartened, thinking will she always 
be content here. Woman-like, I speculate on a marriage for her. 
And if she be here year after year, Winnie, she will have a bad 
chance." 

''But she won't be here, Helen. That is one of my plans. 
Arthur and I have talked it all over, and he desired me to get your 
promise to come out to us for a long visit, when she has finished her 
education. You know," she continued, smiling, ''it will make 
Government House additionally attractive to have a nice girl in it." 

The tears rolled down the widow's cheeks, but she was not able 
to speak. 

'* Sydney is well instructed," said Mrs. Wyndill. ** It would be 
well now if you could manage to give her the next two years at school, 
just to polish the setting of the jewel, Helen. Wotdd you be able to 
do it? Arthur told me that — ^that — you wouldn't mind letting an 
old friend like him do something for his pet, and " 

" I pray to Gbd to bless you and him," said Mrs. Ormsby ; " but I 
have the money, dearest ; I have saved almost a hundred pounds." 

" Well, I won't press his request. I know how independent you 
are. But do the best you can for Sydney for the next couple of years. 
And then you will come out to us ; and shan't we be happy together ? 
Isn't it the best thing, Helen ?" 

" My dearest Winnie, it is a beautiful, a blessed hope for my girl. 
I don't know what to say to you. I used to think of her living on 
here till her youth were over, perhaps; then I'd picture my own 
death and her utter desolation." 

" Well, Helen, that is the way we worry ourselves about things 
that may never come to pass. It is not to-day that grieves us so much 
as the possibilities of to-morrow. We never know by what means 
our Lord shapes our fortunes. Am I not an example of it myself ? 
He saves us almost in spite of us. I don't think," she continued, " I 
would have the heart to take you away from father and mother, only 
that George is to sell out and come home. No one can ever replace 
you: you were better to them than any child they had; still, when 

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1 2 8 The MonKs Prophecy. 

George and liis wife are with them, and Geoff, they won't mias 
much; we owe you undying gratitude for your attention to 
them.*' 

'' I would be heartless, indeed, if I did not give them the love and 
duty of a child," said Mrs. Ormsby. " Only for them and Father 
Moran, how could I have managed, or where should I be to-day ?" 

They continued talking so earnestly that the hours passed by un- 
noticed, and they were only waked to a consciousness of time by the 
merry laughter of children outside the door, and in a moment Mr.. 
Wyndill entered. 

" Is it not a nice thing for a man to have to look for his wife at 
this time of the night ? " he said. ' ' I have not brought you back your 
daughter, Mrs. Ormsby ; she and some of the young ones are gone 
down to have a look at Poulanass." 

" I neyer thought it was so late," said Mrs. WyndilL '* Helen and 
I were in such a profound conversation." 

" Well, I hope you have settled what we were speaking about." 
'' Oh, yes ; we have arranged eveiything beautifully. Have we 
not, Helen?" 

The widow clasped her old friend's hand, and with tearful eyes 
attempted to thank him. 

'' No thanks, no thanks," he said. '' Winnie and I flattered our- 
selves that you would like to pay us a visit, and see the happiness 
you had a hand in bringing about. It will be best for Sydney ; shO' 
will be brought out properly. You and my little wife can relieve each 
other matronising." 

•* It is a great blessing for my girl," said the widow, in a broken 
voice. " I can now look forward to her future without dread." 

" Have no fear about her future," he said. " Leave it to Gt>d, and 
to us ; be assured that we will look after her as if she were our own 
child." 

The children returned from the waterfall, and the friends separated 
for the night. 

Mrs. Ormsby retired to rest, but not to sleep. She waa too ex- 
cited by the evening's conversation. The load that was beginning to 
weigh on her heart for the past year was suddenly lifted away. A 
bright future lay before her girl ; there was no more fear of her. She 
had the promise of her true friends, who not alone had the will, but 
the way to serve her. She calculated about wa3rs and means, how 
much it would cost to educate Sydney for the next two years. Two 
years would be quite sufficient for further mental development, and 
for the acquirement of some accomplishments. She would then be 
more than seventeen and fit to take her place in her little 
world. When the two years were past, all would be well; but 
she would have to be very saving to try and make ends meet. School 

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The Monte s Prophecy. 1 29 

bills, like all bills, swbU up into unexpected proportions ; then am out- 
fit for foreign lands would cost something considerable; everything 
together would require a good deal of money. But with a smile upon her 
lips, the mother fell asleep, and dreamed that they had airiyed abroad; 
that her darling was happily married to another and younger Arthur ; 
that after the wedding she went and knelt beside her husband's graye, 
under the tall palm-trees; that he came to her in shining robes, with 
eyes more blue and beautiful than eyer, and they floated out upon the 
starry deeps, which the smile of Gh>d lighted widi a strange celestial 
8|dendour. 

In a few days the Wyndills and Hassitts left Oastleishmi with 
Eustace ; Captain M'Mahon, his wife, and Oeoffry were to remain for a 
month longer. The old man's health prevented him from taking any 
active part in the management of the property : so the son and hstr 
had many things to regulate. 

When the month was up, Oeoff and his parents left Oastleishen 
also ; and a more than its wonted silence fell upon it. Sydney, the 
only young life remaining, pined a little after her glad, young com- 
panions, and wandered sadly about, paining her mother by the sorrow* 
ful expression of her face. How earnestly she thanked Gk>d thas she 
would not be always left alone, but would have her lines cast in 
pleasant places by-and-by. 

When the stimulating presence of his children and their little ones 
was taken away, the old man began visibly to decline. He did not 
suffer much, but dozed quietly in his arm-chair, and soon it became 
apparent to his watchful attendants that the shadow of death was 
upon him. He got an attack of his old enemy, acute-rheumatism bnt 
got over it again, and was able to sit up. Then he got a slight cold, 
and sunk rapidly. 

Of all his children, Eustace alone waswith him. M rs. Hassett was 
laid up with bronchitis, and was unable to return. He lay one after« 
noon with his head resting against his son's shoulder. 

An itinerant troop of players had come to Lisduff that morning. He 
had always patronised those poor, hard-worked wanderers, and said 
now when someone happened to mention them : '' Are you going to 
hear them, my dear ? Sydney would like it. It is a charity to help the 
poor people." 

" Not this time, father/' replied Eustace ; '* we would not think of 
going while you are so ill." 

" That's true, my boy, I forgot ; I shall feel better when summer 
comes." 

" Father," said Eustace, after a pause^ '' summer is a long time 
away." 

The old man shook his head, for the first time fully realising he 
was near his end. ''Yes," he said, " summer is a long time away ; 

V.>L X., No. 106. \\ 

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byGoogle 



1 30 The MonKs Prophecy. 

and I won't be eony to be with, my God." His mind wandered back 
to old times. ''There was a circus in lisduff the night you were bom, 
Eustace," ho said. '< I remember the lights andmusic. I was passing 
through the town ; I rode twenty miles that evening in two hours, but 
I had a good horse — the best one ever I crossed ; — a brown mare. I 
wasn't a bad rider in my day, boy." 

Eustace talked to him about horses, a subject always interesting to 
him ; and he dozed again after a while. He suffered a good deal that 
night; his old friend, Father Moran, hardly ever left him. Towards 
morning he grew more composed, but the next day, about three o'clock, 
he passed quietly away. 

He had lived the life of a just man and a merciful one. He had 
never put out a hearth-fire, or given a hard word to the poor, and he 
left behind him the name of having been one of God's noblest works, 
— an honest man. 

After the funeral Eustace returned to his studies. It was expected 
that Captain MacMahon would have come to reside permanently at 
Oastleidien'; but his plans were broken up by the delicacy of Geoff, who 
was ordered to Italy. 

The question of Mrs. MaoMahon's going to reside with Mrs. 
Hassett was considered ; but as she rather shrank from the idea, and 
as Eustace said decidedly : " the racket would kill you, mother," it 
was settled that she would remain as she was, for the remaining 
years of her life. 

It was a natural arrangement that Mrs. Ormsby and Sydney should 
remain with Mrs. MacMahon in her lonely widowhood. She would 
be too desolate left alone; her husband's death had given her a 
great shook ; they had been deeply attached aU through their lives ; 
their chUdren had come and gone ; still while they had each other 
they were happy and content; and now that they were separated, 
she felt as if all things in which she had a part had passed away 
with him. Nellie was left in the Hut to keep order as of yore, and 
continue her housewifely occupations. 

The winter wore slowly on ; Mrs. Hassett paid a flying vint ; Eus- 
tace came for three weeks, and brought the smile more frequently to 
his mother's face. She got a severe cold about the end of winter, and 
before the spring softened into summer she was laid beside her hus- 
band in the CastleiBhen tomb. 

{To be coniinuid.) 



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( 131 ) 



A FLICKERING FLAME. 

" T\TING !'» mother, " dying !" was that the word they said ? 

^ I thought I heard them whisper it last night around my bed,-* 
Whisper it softly, sadly, when they thought I did not hear ; 
And I saw your cheek grow white, mother, and you wiped away a tear. 

And your tears are starting fresh, mother ;— oh, yes, it must be so ; 
My short, glad days of childhood, then, are numbered here below. 
'Tis sad, sweet mother, oh ! how sad ! to go so soon away 
From you and all I love so well, this brightly shining May. 

Last year we gathered flowers, mother, that in the wild wood grow, 
We played about the merry fields in evening's sunset glow, 
We listened to the murmuring brook and heard the young birds sing — 
It all has seemed a sweet, sad dream to me, this weary spring. 

For through the long and lonely months IVe lain so helpless here. 
The sighing winds from out the wold for ever in my ear, 
And silent, ghostly snowflakes falling thickly on the ground, 
And wrapping, as in winding-sheet, my dear dead flowers around. 

How eagerly I waited for the summer sun again 
To melt away the dreaiy snow, and the frost from off the pane; 
I thought the glowing summer time would set me free once more. 
To wander through the meadows with my playmates, as of yore. 

And now 'tis here again, mother, and its blithe and sunny smile 
Has given to many drooping things the life they lost awhile ; 
But for me it bears no life, mother, it cannot melt for me 
The winding sheet it melted from flower and from tree. 

For I fear I'm growing weaker as the days grow long and bright ; 
My breath is coming quicker, and I may not live the night. 
Oh ! raise me to the casement — ^I long to see the sky. 
And look upon the budding flowers once more before I die. 

Oh ! that breath of evening air, mother, that breath of evening air, 
It plays around my burning brow, like breath of angel's prayer ; 
Its fragrance brings the memoiy back of scenes I loved so well, 
To which, alas I I now must bid a long, a last farewell. 

And yonder, mother, yonder — oh ! see the gray church tower, 
Casting its long dark shadows on the graveyard's willow bower ; 
Oh ! calm, calm place of resting beneath the willow's shade ; 
Tie there, my mother, is it not ? 'fis there I'm to be laid. 

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132 Jottings in Lancashire. 

I'll not be far away from you, and you can oome to pray, 
By your little Allie's ehady grave at dose of every day ; 
And I shall hear you come, mother, I'll know your gentle tread, 
And feel your loving presence as you pray above my head. 

Nay, weep not, mother dearest, oh ! weep not so for me, 
Eemember what you taught me long ago beside your knee :— ^ 
How we all, one day, shall meet again, in a brighter world above. 
To be evermore united in a full and endless love. 

Draw me closer to you, mother ; I have not long to stay. 
But I always will be with you, though you think I'm far away. 
6[is8 me once again, my mother, ere you lay me down to rest, 
For my limbs are cold and weary and a weight is on my breast. 

• « • « « 

Ah ! yes, indeed, dear tender child, your little limbs are chill — 
Flow on, fond tears of motherhood ! your AUie's voice is still. 

W. J. M. 



JOTTINGS IN LANCASHIRE. 

BY BOSA MULHOIXAin). 

in. 

All over Lancashire we find interesting traces of the old Catholic 
days, when pious and beautiful festivals were kept by the people, in 
honour of religion ; and quaint customs remain from which the holy and 
tender meaning bas long departed. For instance, at Bury, a day of 
great feasting and rejoicing is kept in mid-Lent, and goes by the name 
of Mothering Sunday. The people come from far and near to visit 
their friends at Bury, and are entertained with '* Simnel Cakes " and 
ale. The shop windows are full of a particular kind of tempting cake, 
well sugared on the top, and made in every size, and these are the 
•* Simnel Cakes" for which the day is famous. At New Church and 
Haslingden another dainty is provided for this especial day, called a 
fag pie (fig pie), in which figs and bacon are mingled in the most 
extraordinary manner. The m"uiled ale, which is the favourite drink 
for the occasion, is ale heated, sweetened, and spiced, but (sometimes 
egg-fiip is preferred in its place* At Eocles the chosen beverage is 



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Jottings in Lancashire. 133 

braggot, whioh is ale mulled with eggs and spioes, and there Mother- 
ing Sunday is known as Braggot Sunday. The oustom of drinking 
^ntggot seems to be an old one, for Ohaueer says : — 

'* Her mouth was sweet as bracket, or the nteth or hord of apples 
Laid in bej or betb." 

In andent times it was the practice of the Catholic forefathers of 
these braggot-drinkers to come from a distance to visit the church 
where they had been taught when young, and there to pray and ask 
the blessing of the Mother of Christ. After the visit to church, small 
presents were exchanged among friends and members of families ; 
children made offerings to their parents of a small sum of money 
which they had saved up for the purpose, a trinket, or some eatable 
dainty ; and parents prepared a Simnel Oake to divide among their 
children. In Yorkshire, a dish called " Furmety," made of unground 
wheat boiled in milk, sweetened and spiced, was a very usual treat for 
this occasion. The following lines, quoted from Brand, suggests the 
old meaning of Mothering Sunday : — 

" 1*11 to thee a Simnel bring 
'Ghdnst thou goest a-Motbering ; 
So that when she blessetb thee 
Half that blessing thou'lt gire me !" 

A pretty old oustom, still preserved in the villages near Buxy, is 
that of the Bush-bearing. In olden times, when there were neither 
boards nor flags to be had, the floors of the churches were strewn with 
rushes, and the bringing in of the new rushes came to be regarded as 
a periodical festival. Ghreat ingenuity was shown in the weaving of 
the rush-cart, which was drawn about the streets and to the church 
door by the villagers in their holiday attire. The rush-cart requires 
time and skill for its construction. It is a high cart built all of rushes, 
rising in a peak, and formed like the roof of a house, the gable being 
to the front, and the whole superstructure sloping down over the 
wheels, the edges beautifully out and closely shaven, and a tri- 
angular space in front decorated with rosettes and streamers of 
ribbon, tinsel ornaments, and sometimes even watches. The top is 
surmounted by a banner, held by a small boy who sits astride of all. 
The whole is drawn by thirty or forty men, who walk two-and-two 
carrying high above their heads poles, to which the rush-cart is attached , 
and half a dozen bells are jingling from every pole. The young men 
in the procession are gaily dressed, in straw hats with light-blue rib- 
bons, white shirts tied with many-coloured streamers, brilliant hand- 
kerchiefs worn as sashes, and more gay ribbons below the knee. A 
band of musicians, also showily dressed, march in front preceded by 
a gay new banner with some quaint device, and by the fool of the 
village mounted on a donkey, and attired in absurd trappings, generally 
s seoxlel kunting-coat, cocked hat, hunting-boots, and a sword in his 

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134 Jottings in Lancashire, 

hand. The procession is flanked by ten or twelve oountrymen, as 
bravely decked out as the rest, each carrying a new cart- whip, which 
he plies lustily about as he walks, cracking it to the time of the music. 
Of late, horses instead of men draw the rush-cart, and, as there is no 
longer need of them in church or chapel, the rushes are sold after the 
festival is over. 

The footprints of the persecuted Catholic religion are to be seen 
all over Lancashire, and in past evil days the fldelity to the faith of 
the ladies of the county was especially conspicuous. We And them 
frequently described in Qovemment reports as '' obstinate recusants 
and harbourers of seminarists ;" and, in truth, they were always ready 
to run risks in order to provide food and shelter for persecuted priests, 
being often the only persons in a household who knew of the fact that 
a clergyman was concealed within the walls. When he was obliged 
to fly irom the shelter of their roof, they followed him with their help 
and protection to the lowly cottage or lonely wood in which he had 
concealed himself, and even to his prison they nobly made their way, 
supplying the necessaries of life which were denied him by his foes. 

Even the walls of many of the old Lancashire mansions bear witness 
to the piety of their early inhabitants, as, for instance, in the case of 
Speke Hidl (seven miles south of Liverpool, on the banks of the 
Mersey), where we find inscribed on the wainscoting of the great 
haU:— 

** Slope not till ye hathe well considered 

How tboue bast spent the day past ; 

If tboue bast well done tbank God. If 

Otberways repent ye." 

And in the dining-room : — 

*< Tbe Btregbtest I Qod to lore and serre 
Waye to bcaren J ^ j&boye all things." 

Speke Hall is one of the most perfect specimens of an andent 
timbered house now existing, is furnished to correspond with its style 
and age, and retains all the features of an old Elizabethan mansion. 
We know not exactly when it was first built, but it was restored in 
the days of Queen Elizabeth. It is surrounded by a moat; gigantic 
yews filled their gloom over an antique court ; the old Hall is decorated 
with a wainscot mantelpiece, brought from Edinburgh Oastle after the 
victory at Flodden Field, and here Sir WiUiam Norns brought, aa 
spoil, part of the Scotch king's library from Holyrood House* The 
Norris family resided at Speke for many generations before the battle 
of Flodden Field, in 1513, and adhered long to the Faith, hiding- 
places for priests being still found in the house, and a subterranean 
passage with access to the shore. Ultimately the family became 
Protestant to secure the estates, and, in 1692, we find them denouncing 
the '' Papists." In the eighteenth centuxy the male line failed, and 

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Jottings in Lancashire, 135 

Speke went to Mary, heiress of the house and estates, who became 
Lad J Sydney Beauderk. Of this Lady Dr. Johnson remarks, that she 
had '* no notion of a joke^ and had a mighty unpliable understanding." 
Her son, Topham Beauderk, was the friend of Johnson, Goldsmith, 
andBeynolds; and his son sold the estates, in 1797, for seven thousand 
pounds. The purdiaser was Mr. Biohard Wyatt, a successful West 
Lidia merchant, whose story is as interesting, in its own way, as that 
of his aristocratic predecessors. As a poor lad he had worked under 
one James Dimocke, who hired out the only vehicle which at that time 
was to be had in Liverpool. Through the kindness of Dimocke, Wyatt 
got some schooling and made his way to Jamaica, where he amassed 
an enormous fortune. Eehiming to his native land, he sought out 
and settled money upon Dimocke's surviving daughters; and Miss 
Wyatt, a desoendcmt of the worthy Jamaica merchant is, at present* 
in possession of the Speke estates. 

Another most interesting andent house, now fast decaying, is old 
Lydiate Hall, about ten miles from Liverpool, and the property of Mr. 
Wdd-Blundell, of Lace. From the Domesday record it appears that 
'* Uotred hdd Leiate. There are 6 bovates of land, and a wood, 1 
league long and 2 furlongs broad. It was worth 64 pence." Lea 
means a pasture, ate a gate, and hence the name which was later 
changed to Lydiate. The Norman conquest displaced many andent 
Saxon proprietors, and the Conqueror granted Lydiate to Boger de 
Poitou. The founders of the Hall were Laurence Lreland, and his wife, 
Catherine Blundell, of the Blimdells of Crosby. The date of the oldest 
part of the Hall is unknown ; but, in 1451, Laurence, its owner, built 
the later-erected portions of the house. After many change it came 
into the hands of the always Catholic Blundells of Lace, by the death of 
Sir Frauds Anderton, in 1760. Li latter days it has been used partly 
as a farm-house, and partly as a reddence for the priest of the district. 
It is thus described, by one who knows it well, in a recently published 
and most interesting work : — * 

" Lying a field's breadth from the road, and sheltered from the west 
by fine avenues of lime-trees, it is an object of interest to the wayfarer 
. . . Constructed of oaken timber, framed in perpendicular, horizontal 
and angular lines, and arranged in quatrefoil and other patterns. 
The intersticee are filled in with daub (composed of day aud straw or 
rushes), and covered with plaster, producing, with the gables and their 
hip-knobs, a picturesque combination of forms. • • • Above the porch 
are three roses, red and white, with foliage, and a parti-coloured rose 
in the centre, pointing to the date of the building of the porch, com- 
parativdy new, soon after the disastrous wars of the rival houses of 

* "Lydiate HaU and its AasodatioDa.'' By the BeT. Thomas BUbon Gibson, Priest 
of Our Ladj's Church at Lydiate. 

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136 Jottings in Lancashire. 

Lancaster and York. The only windows in front, ooeral with the 
building, are the lower range of diamond lights, secured with lead* 
which lighted that side of the ancient hall. . . . The original plan of 
the building was a quadrangle, with a court enclosure. This is evident 
from the traces that remain of the junction of the wings. ; . . The 
oldest portion was the front, containing the principal apartments, 
bmlt of stone, and surrounded by a moat." 

This finest part of the Hall was swept away to furnish materials for 
a stable for the farmer, John Rimmer, who became tenant of the noble 
but fallen old dwelling in 1779. The then owner, Mr. Henry Blundell 
(who was a munificent patron of the fine arts) gave a reluctant per- 
mission to demolish so much that was picturesque and interesting, and 
now there is no trace of the principal front of the Hall. Speaking of 
the interior, our author teUs us of double oaken doors, on which a 
modem burglar might employ his centre-bit in vain ; of ceilings sup- 
p<Mrted by heavy rafters, and walls wainscoted in oak ; of doorways 
surmounted by magnificent antlers ; of a ruined chapel, and of ancient 
BtaiioaseSy one of which is guarded by a curious figure of St. Katherine, 
virgin and martyr, with sword in her right hand, and wheel broken 
away ; and by a quaint representation of tiie Visitation of the Blessed 
Yirgin, of great antiquity. The great Hall, which still preserves traces 
of magnificence of design and lich ornamentation, in the carvings of 
walls wainscoted with two heights of panels, and in windows which are a 
continuous line of narrow diamond panes, has been divided by a modem 
partition into kitchen, lobby, and buttery, for the accommodation of the 
farmer's family, who for more than a hundred years have followed 
their simple avocations under carven canopies, and surrounded by 
foliage mouldings, armorial devices, ingeniously wrought initials of 
long-dead men, &c. Of late the old mansion seems to have become 
too dilapidated even for its modem tenants ; and, as the fate of the 
ancient Hall is doubtful, no repaLrs are being made. 

Perhaps the most interesting part of all is that most fallen to decay, 
tiie chapel where, in*heavy days for the faithful, they gathered together 
to assist at the holy Mass. When alterations were being made here, 
in 1841, it was found necessary to remove the chimney of spacious 
dimensions rising from the Hall below; and a curiously contrived 
hiding-place was discovered in it, concealed by a sliding panel. In 
tiie south wing of the house another hiding-place was discovered, in 
1863, aoeessibie by means of the rafters. A small chamber, ten feet 
by four, was laid bare by alterations going on in the roof, and some 
young people found in it a fowl-bone, which they carried away as a 
relio of the solitary meal of some long-forgotten, persecuted Lydiate 
priest. In like manner, an old farm-house, half a mile from the Hall, 
on being pulled down, was seen to contain a small room under the 
thatch, evidently made for and used as a hiding-place. In it were 
found an old chair and a religious book. (TooqIp 



Jottings in Lancashire. 1 3 7 

A pewter chalioe and paten are atill preserved at the Hall, belong- 
ing to the time of the persecutions, when they were used, as being lees 
likely to excite the cupidity of the pursuivants. In 1684, an informant 
writes : " They have such privie places to hide their massing tromprie, 
that hardlie it can be found ; they have to themselves often Mass, 
and now, because Sir Oeorge Carey and his s'vants have so often taken 
from them their silver chalices, they have provided chalices of tynn.*' 

The neighbotLrhood around Lydiate is not only rich in Catholic 
traditions, but is actually peopled at present with Catholic 
inhabitants, owing to the goodness of the ancient Blundell 
families, who never fell away from the Faith, and always gathered 
their poor around them, treating them with fostering protection and 
generous care. Walking from Waterloo, a modern fashionable seaside 
outlet of liveipool, one arrives first at Ghreat Crosby, an ordinary 
thriving little town, with some ancient houses ; further on one comes 
to Little Crosby, a quaint, and entirely Catholic village, with a vener- 
able cross of dark red-stone, standing from time immemorial among 
the diamond-paned cottages, and, finally, about a mile deeper into the 
inland country, one passes through the more rural, and scattered, and 
equally CatboUc village of Ince, close to the gates of Inoe-Blundell 
Hall, backed by dark thick woods, and flanked by wide flat fields, 
dotted here and there by farms and homesteads, and with a picturesque 
windmill or two upon the higher grounds. The landscape is hardly 
beautiful, but there is a width of plain and firmament, an air of peace, 
a certain simple and tender poe^ in the very tameness of the scene. 
Here, at Ince and Crosby, have been seated, from the earliest times, 
two Catholic families of the name of Blundell, no way related to each 
other, occupying the same social position, and bound together by old 
friendship and social intercourse. It has been suggested that Blondell, 
the French minstrel who sought through England for Richard Cgbut 
de Lion, and found him by means of hier sweet music, may have been 
the original founder of both families. However that may be, the name 
sprang up about the eleventh or twelfth century in England, and has 
always been identified with the ancient faith. The estates of the 
Blundells of Ince have passed from father to son for a period of six 
hundred years ; until quite lately, when the male line having failed, 
the property was willed to Mr. Weld-Blundell by the late Mr. Charles 
Blundell of Ince. A member of the other family of the same name 
seated at Crosby, has left some very interesting records of troubled 
times. Our authority says : — 

"The diary of Nicholas Blundell, Esquire, of Crosby (1701-28) 
fundBhes an interesting picture of the ordinary life of a Catholic 
squire during the first quarter of the last century. His occupations 
and recreations from day to day are detailed with scrupulous exactitude 
and show him to have been an active, kind, and religious man. His 

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1 38 Jottings in Lancashire. 

tenantry benefited by bis presence amongst tbem. Their intareets, 
spiritual and temporal, were well eared for, and he afforded them 
opportunities of innocent amusement, in a manner and to an extent 
totally unknown in these times. When sick he visited them at their 
cottages, provided them with the consolations of religion, and often 
sent his carriage to convey the dead to the place of interment." 

Mr. Nicholas Blundell was evidently a social man, and much liked 
by his Protestant neighbours, who, far from informing upon him, 
seem to have done their best to shelter him from annoyance. That 
they could not always succeed in this is plain from some of his entries, 
as where he says : — 

''Nov. 13. This house was twice searched by some foot as come 
from LiverpooL I think the party were about 26. 

'' Nov. 16. I set in a straight place for a fat man. ' 

And again : — 

'' My house searched for myself, horses and arms, by Edd. Willoby, 
Esq., lieut. Tomp. Ounce, the high constable, — they seized 2 of my 
coach horses, (Jock and Bobin;) they are to be sent to them to- 
morrow." 

Other entries of 1708 show the terms on which heU ved with his 
neighbours of a different religion. 

*' May 16. Mr. Plumb sent an express to give me notice concerning 
an information made against Mr. Blundell, of Ince, by Parson Ellison. 
I went to Ince to acquaint Mr. Blundell therewith, and writ from 
thence to Mr. Plumb. July 19th, I went to Ormskirk sessions, where 
Mr.Molyneuxof Bold, Mr. Trafford, Mr. Harrington, I, &c., compounded 
to prevent conviction. We appeared in court before Sir Thomas 
Stanley, Dr. Norris, and Mr. Gate, all J.P.s. We Catholics that got our 
convictions dined together at Eichd. Woodses. After dinner we went 
to the new Club-house, and thence back to Richd. Wood's and drunk 
punch with Sir Thos. Stanley/* 

The above is rather amusing. The Protestant justices were evi- 
dently friendly to the Catholic culprits, and probably ashamed of the 
degradation to which they were obliged to subject their friends. Sir 
Thomas Stanley was owner of Cross Hall, near Ormskirk, and father 
of the first Earl of Derby of that stock* 

One note in Mr. Nicholas Blundell's diary refers to a pretty old 
English midsummer custom. " I went," he says (July 24, 1707), '^ to 
the flowering of Ince Cross with Mr. Blundell " (his neighbour and 
namesake). In July, probably, the wealth of their gardens was 
brought with ceremony by rich and poor to decorate the Symbol of 
the Faith, sure to be found occupying a prominent place in the village. 
The old Cross of Ince is still standing, but we doubt if the beautiful 
midsummer festival is still held in its honour. It is evident that the 
Protestant neighbours winked at this pretty custom, and did not in- 

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Jottings in Lancashire. 13Q 

fonn on heir genial friend for mixing in the holiday gathering of 
villagers,, and sending some of the ohoicest blooms of his garden to 
decorate the Cross. In many ways he was mnch better off than his 
ancestor, who, in 1629, was fined £2000 for making a burial-ground 
for his tepmnts within his own park, they having been refused intei- 
ment at the neighbouring church of Sefton. In the diary of Mr. 
Nicholas Blundell are found many notes of interesting local OTontSy as 
for instance, when he states, on the dlst of August, 1715, that he^hits 
just been to see the opening of the new dock, and beheld the furst 
yessd sail into it This good man died in 1736, and was the last male 
of his line. His daughter married Henry Pippard, Esq., of Drogheda, 
and from her are descended the present Blundells of Crosby. 

To return to old Lydiate Hall. It is a thousand pities that such a 
noble old dwelling, so closely associated with ancient Catholic times, 
should be allowed to moulder to decay. We cannot do better than 
conclude this rude sketch of a few of the interesting features of 
Lancashire with another bit of description of the interior of the house 
and its surroundings, taken from the author whose valuable book 
we have so freely made use of : 

'* The slating of the centre portion of the house was renewed in 
186«5, and added much to the cqmfort of the resident priest Before 
thai rain had pretty free ingress. When the oaken rafters were laid 
bare on this occasion it was remarked that they were sound enough to 
last another century. 

'* At the period of its construction it is probable that there was 
much wood in Lydiate itself, but the neighbouring township of Altcar 
must have furnished a still more abundant supply. . There is evidence 
of the existence formerly of extensive forests in the number of oak« 
roots still visible in the dykes. These roots crop up occasionally to 
the surface of the land, and when the plough comes in contact with 
them the spot is carefully marked out that they may be removed at 
leisure. To such an extent have these roots been extracted from the 
eoily that on visiting a farm-house in this locality a large oaken balk 
may generally be seen upon the fire. The writer has been informed 
by Thomas Haskayne, of Gbre Houses, Altcar, a farm under Lord 
Sefton, which has been held by the family for many generations, that 
from his earliest remembrance scarcely a day has passed in which two 
large balks have not been consumed in this manner. The custom has 
always been to place one upon the kitchen fire after the first meal and 
another after dinner, and tiiese roots are often so large and heavy 
that they require at least two men to lift them. This will account for 
the ready supply of the large quantity of oak which must have been 
used in the erection of the Hall. As the roads were in a deplorable 
state at the period at which it was built, both the stone and the wood 
must have been attainable within an easy distance for the require- 
ments of such a building. . . . r^^^^T^ 

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I40 yottings in Lancashire. 

^ On the landing to the left is a large room with panelled ceiling, 
divided with maaaive beams (slightly carved and richly moulded) into 
twelve compartments. The waiascot (oak) is finished with an angular 
fillet in herring-bone, with a cavetto above enriched with grapes and 
vine-leaveS| surmounted by a corona. Between the heads of iMs the 
surface is pierced, and contains winged figures bearing shields ; two 
others are seated, one playing on a bass-violin, the other on a bag- 
pipe. Two ancient doorways have been inserted in the body of tlie 
wainscoting, decorated with carved panels, representing five of the 
wives of Henry VUJL. ; Edward IV. ; and an elderly man with bushy 
beard, perhaps intended for Sir Thomas More. Below these figures 
are various devices, such as — 

'' An nnicom's head, erased, a dragon rampant, a dancing bear, 
grapes and vine-leaves, a wyvern, grapes, &c. ; a branch with a rose 
and a dolphin, a branch of oak with acorns, a bear and a bull, and a 
branch of oak. 

^' Another doorway, which stands apart represents, in the topmost 
compartment Henry YIU., and his first wife, Elatharine of Arragon. 

'' There seems to be little doubt but that these carved doorways 
were brought from the chief rooms in the principal front when that 
portion of the building was demolished. All the carving in this room 
has, unfortunately, been painted over, and consequently its freshnesa 
and original delicacy altogether lost. A little room, formerly used aa 
a Tcstiy, leads to tiie old chapel, which has been disused since the* 
building of the church in 1854, excepting during winter, when Mass 
is occasionally said on week-days within a portion curtained off for 
that purpose. . ; . The walls are panelled in oak, and on one of the* 
large beams at the lower end are some remains of painted decorations 
over the altar which formerly stood there.'' 

Here many generations of the proscribed faithful assisted at the 
Holy Sacrifice, at the risk of heavy penalties, as did our own fore- 
fathers in the bogs and caves of Ireland. The Catholics of England 
have reason to be grateful to those brave men and women of past 
days whose constancy connects them and their children with the 
Outhberts, the Wolstans, and the Anselms, of the andent English 
Church. 



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( 141 ) 



OUTSIDE, 

BT HSLEN D. TAHTTER. 

TUST outside of my window 
^ There is one bough of green. 
Covered with glorious blossoms — 
It is all that can be seen. 

You know I am in prison, 

And through weary days Fye lain 
And smiled to see the dancing leaves 

Outside of my window pane. 

But out in the world, I sometimes say, 
There are forests and forests of trees 

That toss their branches high in the air, 
As they murmur in the breeze. 

Just over my branch sail cloudlets^ 

Sometimes all pearly white. 
Then tinged with the colours of sunset. 

And of glorious rosy light. 

But out in the world, I sometimes say, 
Tou can see the whole of the skies — 

The glory of morning and hush of noon, 
And the silence when the day dies. 

Just outside of my window 

A brown bird comes and sings — 
Melodies pour from his tiny throat. 

As he sits on my bough and swings* 

I u out in the world, I sometimes say, 
There are countless, countless birds : 

They build their nests in the leafy nooks 
Where their joyous songs are heard. 

Just outside of my window 

A pale violet tries to grow ; 
But the prison wall keeps the sun away. 

And it droops as the harsh winds blow 

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1 4 2 Thoughts on Prayer, 

But out in the world, I sometimes say, 
Oh ! think of the flowers that live — 

The roses and lilies and clover-tops, 
And the perfumed breath they give. 

But we grumble not, my heart and I, 
Shut out from the beautiful earth : 

We catch a hint of the lovely Spring, 
And we picture her glorious lirth. 

My few green leaves are so much to me 
Outside of my window to-day, 

And my brown bird sits there and sings 
Till he charms my pain away. 

My own little piece of blue sky 
Shows the whole of what it may he, 

I have two stars and two tiny clouds — 
And what more can you see ? 

And nothing is lost, I sometimes say — 
Every scrap of glory and light 

Is being kept safe for me, I know. 
Hid in God's bosom bright. 

And somewhere all will be given back 
When my eyelids by death are kissed. 

I know, when I wake in another world, 
I shall And the Spring I have missed. 



THOUGHTS ON PEAYEE. 



ERASMUS said that to agree well with God is the fountain of 
true tranquillity. A craving to possess that tranquillity comes 
sooner or later to those restless characters who have not been bom, as 
some more fortunate are, with calm, quiet, prayerful temperaments. 
' degrees, the way to acquire such enviable peace dawns on them. 

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Thoughts on Prayer. 143 

Btep by step, leading upwards to oonyeree with Gk>d througli prayer. 
Prayer is a necessity to mankind, who have so much of God^s likeness, 
that perfect happiness is tmknown while they are chained to earth. 
Oonsequently, Uie communication between Creator and creature— 
prayer — ^is essential and most soothing. 

That this is an instinctive need of human beings, not merely a result 
of education, showing there is aspiration in man's nature for something 
higher than earth, is proved by the fact of savage nations paying 
homage and offering sacrifice to a supreme Being — their '* Great 
Spirit,** by whom they trust to be admitted, after death, to the '' happy 
hunting-grounds." 

Some of the South Pacific islanders have such trust in God, believ- 
ing He is too good to harm them, that they never pray to Him; 
but they pray propitiatingly to the devil, that he may not injure them. 

The doctrine held now by some miserable unbelievers, that no one 
is superior to man, receives awful denial in the presence of Gk>d*s 
sentence, death, commg unexpectedly at all ages ; — in infancy, in child- 
hood, in youth, in manhood, in middle life, and in old age. 

Different minds give utterance to divers prayers: it is interesting 
to study the forms of prayer seized and, as it were, taken possession 
of by some minds. 

There is selfish and unselfish prayer. 

In great grief most minds are selfish. A humiliating thought, and 
yet a general fault of human frailty : which fact does not lessen the 
humiliation felt, but adds to it, that there should be any thought of 
self at such times. 

In Oarlyle's sorrow at his father^s death, he prayed : '' Ood give me 
to live to my father's honour and to his. In the world of realities 
may the Great Father again bring us together in perfect holiness and 
perfect love ! Amen." 

Though beautiful-— would that he had prayed so to the end!— the 
prayer has somewhat of self ; a contrast with St. Augustine's prayer 
in his grief on the death of his devoted mother, St. Monica, when he 
prayed for her sins : '' Forgive them, O Lord, forgive them, I beseech 
Thee." Completely absorbed St. Augustine was in the thought for 
her; none for himself . 

So should prayer be ; and such simple, unstudied prayer brings 
repayment, though unexpected ; as no prayer is lost. 

The communion of saints assures this. God's generosity allows no 
breath wafted towards Him, no passing thought of Him, no appeal to 
Him, no idea floating towards Him, to be lost. Its aim at Him en- 
sures its coming back, not as the Australian boomerang returns to the 
thrower, just as it went, but laden with graces and blessings from 
God to the worshipper. 

St. Francis Xavier's prayer to love God, not in fear, nor in expec- 

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144 Thoughts on Prayer. 

tation of reward, but to love Him for hie own sake, is spiritual, perfect, 
unselfish ; only loving, only thinking of pouring forth love to God. 
True love, rarely met here, is to be quite happy in the security of the 
welfare and happiness of the dear ones, even when separated by 
distance. 

It is the uncertainty of weal, and the dread of woe, that makes 
separation in this woiid hard to bear ; and it is the sudden, perpetual 
silence after death, though thought of with profound faith, that causes 
the bitterness of that other separation : reminding mortals of Adam's 
disobedience, and the consequent punishment of death. 

A punishment to those left as weU as to those taken. The punish- 
ment to those who die in faith, in hope, in love, in contrition, in 
beautiful, boundless trust, is over as they sigh away their souls from 
earth to heaven. The punishment to those left endures in the silence ; 
no word of comfort from those dear to them being given, nor any 
token, to soften their agony. 

The wife of JFrands Borgia, Duke of (}andia, was grievously ilL 
' ^ He fasted and prayed earnestly for her recovery. One day he was on 
a sudden visited with an extraordinary interior light in his soul, and 
heard, as it were, a voice saying distinctly within him: 'If thou 
wouldst have the life of the duchess prolonged, it shall be granted ; 
but it is not expedient for thee.' This he heard so clearly and 
evidently that, as he assured others, he could not doubt, either then 
or afterwards, but it was a divine admonition. He remained exceed- 
ingly confounded, and penetrated with a most sweet and tender love 
of Ood ; and, bursting into a flood of tears, he addressed himself to 
God as follows : my Lord and my Gk>d, leave not this, which is only 
in thy power, to my will. Who art Thou but my Creator and Sovereign 
Good ? And who am I but a miserable creature ? I am bound in all 
things to conform my will to Thine. Thou alone knowest what is best, 
and what is for my good." 

It occurs to one's mind as strange the duke did not pray that what 
was best for the duchess should be done ; but, though he loved her 
much, he thought as all saints think ; he and his Creator are alone 
where the soul is concerned. 

The Duchess of Gandia died : the Duke was left a widower at 
thirty five years of age, and became St. Francis, bringing many souls 
to God before his time to die came, twenty-seven years later. 

God gave, in the Sermon on the Mount, the prayer comprising all 
He asks from mortals, and all they want. Our Saviour said : — '' For 
your Father knoweth what is needful for you before you ask Him. 
Thus, therefore, shall you pray : Our Father J^ Each individual soul 
saying the Lord's Prayer daily, and dwelling beseechingly on the 
special cure required for its shortcomings appeals, with longing ardour 
to obtain its request, so hoping to secure its arrival in God's presence, 

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A Blessing in Disguise. 145 

by miming the gauntlet of tliis life safely, and with a sigh, relieyed, 
to pass througli the gates of his kingdom to rest — ^f or ever. 

A beautiful simple prayer of the Psalmist is: — "May God, our 
Gk)d, bless us ; may God bless us I" 



A BLESSINO IN DISGUISE. 
BY BUTH o'oomroB. 

SHE stood beneath the Springtime's joyous light, 
A fair young picture framed in roses white, 
Whilst at her feet the tender violets grew ; 
And, though all nature spoke of joy and peace 
And hailed Queen Summer and her flowers' increase, 
This young heart neither peace nor gladness knew. 

With eyes averted from the azure sky. 
She heeded not the zephyrs rippling by, 

Nor marked the note of nightingale's glad song. 
There was no sunshine in her sorrowed heart ; 
With life's best hope she felt that she must part — 

The hour had come that she had prayed for long. 



She stood beneath the Autumn's chastened light, 
While brown leaves fell and drifted out of sight, 

And sad winds whispered through the leafless trees ; 
And, dreading not the melancholy days, 
She blessed GK>d for his wondrous hidden ways, 

With glad face lifted to the chilling breeze. 



ToL. z.. Ho. 106. 12 

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( H6 ) 



DEAD BROKE: 

A TALB OF THE WE8TEBN STATES. 

BT DILLON 0*BRIEH. 
▲imiOB OF ** FBAMK BLAKV," " WIDOW MBLVILLB*B BO>BDXirO-HOU8S,** Ao. &0. 

CHAPTER V. 

ANOTHER DEPABTUBB. 

One of the greatest blessings of youth is hope — ^abuoyant, brave hope, 
that can turn to the future with laughing eyes, and see not a shadow. 
Charles Lamb I think it is, who says, that a man never realises 
''that he himself is mortal, until he is past thirty years of age." 
Neither do we realise in youth that our hopes are mortal. Those that 
come to us in after life may have a more rational basis to rest on^ but 
they are but lean ghosts compared to the lusty hopes of youth. 

Robert McGregor returned from St. Louis in high good humour 
with his trip there, haying not a doubt but that he would hear or 
see James Allen within a year. 

** Why," he said, ** fellows had made fortunes in California in two 
weeks, and he'd back Jim against the smartest of them." And so, 
buoyed up with hope and youth's golden dreams, he returned to his 
home. Mayhap, some thought of pretty Lucy Evans — that the words 
of James Allen had given the cue to— mixed up in his day dreams, 
making those dreams still the sweeter. 

On Robert's arrival home, his father proposed that they should 
spend the summer and fall in travelling. " I wish you to see some of 
the world, Robert," he said '' and to have the pleasure of showing it 
to you myself; not but that a younger companion would be more suit- 
able." So to travel they went, avoiding New York, for special 
reasons connected with Mr. William McGregor, the doctor's quilpish* 
brother; although, as Doctor McGregor remarked, "it was playing 
Hamlet, with the character of Hamlet left out" And all this time, at 
home or abroad, with the days, weeks, and months passing pleasantly 
and tranquilly, there was no word spoken about Roberts choosing a 
profession or a business. 

Lot was near Christmas when they returned to their home, and both 
received invitations to attend the examination in the public school, 
previous to the holidays. Robert attended, perhaps from a general 
interest in education, perhaps from a special interest in a certain little 
sdiool teacher, with wavy hair — all her own, dear ladies — and blue 

* Hat DickeDB* Mr. Quilp giTen a new adjeotive to the Esgliah language? 

Ed. I. M. 



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Dead Broke. 147 

eyes ; at all events, towards the close of the day, he found himself 
chatting with Lucy Evans. 

8he had been a little embarrassed when she met him first that day, 
not knowing exactly how to address him ; '' Mr. McGregor" would be 
too formal, she thought, and how could she call that taU young man 
whom she had not seen, " oh, not for an age,*' Bobert; so she said 
neither, but giving him her hand in her own frank way — which 
brought back the school-house hill fresh to Robert's mind — said, ''How 
do you do ? I am very glad to see you ; " and now,as she stood there 
speaking to him, she found herself calling him Bobert quite naturally. 

"Did you not admire the way the classes answered, to-day, 
Bobert ?" she asked. 

" No ; I was admiring one of the teachers too much, to pay any 
attention to the classes." 

'' One of the teachers. Ah ! that must be dear old Miss Dott ; she 
will be quite pleased if you tell her so ; but as she is a little deaf, you 
will have to speak somewhat loud." 

•*0h, yes, to be sure," said Bobert, "old Miss Dott: it is, of 
course, Miss Dott ; and I will remind her of the pleasant sleigh rides 
she and I used to have down hill." 

"Of course you will," she answered, with an arch look; "but 
talking of sleigh rides, Bobert, reminds me of poor Jim Allen ; — so ha 
is gone to Calif omia ; — ^how did you two ever manage to part ?" 

" Oh, Jim had his heart set on going ; but he will return soon, with 
lots of money, if anyone will. He went to wish you good-by, did he 
not?" 

" Yes, and spoke of you all the time." 

"What did he say?" 

Just at that moment Lucy recollected something that James did 
say, in reference to herself and Bobert; her face became suffused with 
blushes that added to her beauty, and saying that she was wanted in 
another part of the room, she sldpped away, leaving Bobert nearly as 
much in love as when his heart used to thump as they rode down hill 
together, the previous long pull up hill, it must be confessed, having 
more to say to this heart action than love. 

About this time Doctor McGregor set about improving his wild 

land near the town of P , and employed a number of men to chop 

down the timber. In the spring he would dear up the brush and 
open a farm. 

The question of Boberf s future was settled in tlus way. He 
should be a gentleman farmer ; and most acceptable was this solution 
to both father and son. 

Bobert, in truth, had no desire to acquire a profession, nor taste 
for commercial pursuits. like his father, he was wanting in ambi- 
tion ; good and honourable, he was willing to live his Uf^ in the 

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1 48 Dead Broke. 

amootli water in which it had commenced^ never dreaming of the 
storms and tempests which might overtake him. Had he been bom a 
poor man's son, doubtless, he would have been a worker, and with his 
intellect and noble disposition, a successful one. Had his father 
required his assistance, how cheerfully he would have laboured ; but 
there was no incentive to awaken his dormant energies, and so he 
settled down to enjoy life tranquilly, active only in one duty, which 
affection made light, to make his father's declining years cheerful and 
happy. 

'' I had some thought, at one time, of you becoming a lawyer, 
Bobert," said his father to him. '' In its higher walks it is a noble 
profession. To protect the weak against the strong, to be the 
champion of innocence, the denouncer of wrong, to fearlessly drag the 
mask from guilt or hypocrisy — surely here is a t6U that may well 
make us envy the position of the gifted advocate; but the everyday 
pettifogging practice, the cunning tricks, the remorseless driving some 
poor fellow to the wall, the acquiescence in the prevarication and 
downright dishonesty of cHents the quirks and quibbles, the rejoicing 
when others weep, the arming one's elf against pitiful appeals, until 
the heart becomes so hard as to need no extra protection against the 
voice of sorrow, the narrow groove in which the lawyer is compelled 
to travel, his duty to his clients, this everyday practice has a tendency 
to narrow the heart, blunt the conscience, and in a great measure 
destroy those generous promptings that are the voices of angels 
speaking to the soul." 

The spring arrived, and no word or letter from James Allen. Then 
Bobert heard that the leader of James' party had returned to St. Louis, 
and was organising another expedition. 

So to St. Louis Bobert went, hunted up the man, and heard from 
him about James up to a certain point. He had arrived safe, was the 
most useful and obliging man they had on the expedition, and had 
set right off for the mines. '' Hope he'll have luck," concluded the 
man, '' and I'm sure he will ; he's just the feUow to cut out his own 
luck." With this scrap of news Bobert was fain to content himself, 
and to return home. 

'' The fellow will keep to his resolution of not writing, I fear," 
thought Bobert; "well, perhaps that will make him return all the 
sooner." 

This summer was a busy one for Bobert ; opening a farm was new 
work for him, and his father left it all in his hands ; he frequently 
returned to the cottage in the evening, with face, hands, and doihes 
begrimed with the smoke of the burning brush he had been waging 
war on all day. On such occasions the doctor would very likely meet 
him with a smile, and tell him to hurry up and make himftftlf admis- 
sible to the dinner-table. After, the evening meal, the doctor would 



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Dead Broke. 149 

take a walk among his beloved flowers for an hour or so; then 
retoming to the house, the rest of the evening would be spent in dis- 
cussing plans'f or the new farm, which was to be a model one — although 
it had not, as yet, assimied even the outlines of a farm — in talking 
over local news, or reading. A happy summer was this to Bobert ; he 
enjoyed all the pleasures of active employment, without any of its 
drudgery ; and when he returned to his home each evening, peace and 
love met him at the threshold. Yet even then the angel of death was 
hovering near that home, although not the tiniest shadow— oh, the 
blessedness of that veil drawn before the future — told of the approach 
of its dark wings. 

Early in October, Doctor McGfregor came in from his garden one 
morning complaining of headache and chill, and within four days the 
physician, who had been called in, pronounced it to be a case of 
typhoid fever. The worst feature was, that from the first the patient 
himself gave up all hope of recovery. " He knew," he told the phy- 
sidan, " that this was to be his last illness ;" and then, ever mindful 
of others, he strove to prepare Bobert' s mind for the great change. 

" Should I be taken from you, Eobert, at this time," he said, '' I 
know, my son, how great your sorrow will be ; but let it not be that 
dismal grief that shuts out all light from the soul. My boy, we have 
been all in all to one another. How happy we have been, Bobert, and 
should this illness prove fatal, think of this, and let not your grief 
amount to rebellion against that which is the will of Ood, and was to 
be expected in the course of nature, within a short time." 

"Oh, father, you will recover," said Bobert, endeavouring to 
master his own swelling grief, '' Doctor Mitch says that the greatest 
danger is in your allowing those gloomy thoughts to take possession 
of your mind." 

"Gloomy, my boy? I have thought of death every day for the 
last thirty years. Dr. Mitch speaks as a physician and materialist, but 
not as a Christian. He believes that death is the finis of the book ; I 
believe it is but the opening ; we only read the preface here. Speak- 
ing to you thus, Eobert, calms me rather then depresses me, though I 
could weep at the pain I give my boy ; but you know, that doctors 
have often the best of motives for inflicting pain." Eobert could not 
answer ; he pressed his father's hand in silence. " Listen to me, my 
son," continued the doctor. " I know how uncertain and changeful 
those fevers are, and how apt they are to affect the mind. You 
know all about our affairs, and you shall find — ^in case of the worst — 
all my papers regular." 

" Oh, father, father, do not speak of such things." 

"Well, no," replied the sick man, "there is no occasion. The 
Bev. Mr. Boche is in the house, you say?" 

"Yes, father." 

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I50 Dead Broke. 

** Send him to me, and let us not be disturbed. Kiss me, my boj. 
Now go for a little wbile." 

As the sick man seemed to have anticipated, his mind became af- 
fected on the eighth day of th6 fever, and continued so, with short 
intervals, up to his death. He was no longer in Michigan ; the present 
and its near past were obliterated, and he was once more among the 
bluebells and heather of his native highlands, and his lost wife — ^his 
Annie — and " little Bob " were bj his side. Now in a boat, on a 
lake, he saw the tempest coming up ; but as he endeavoured to take 
in sail, Annie clung around him and pinioned his arms, so that he 
could not move. '* Look, Annie, there is the squall chasing along the 
water ;— oh, let me out ! — (Jod ! You and * little Eob * will be 
drowned. There, the squall has struck the boat ; down, down, down !" 
Again he, Annie, and "little Bob" were on the table-land, over- 
looking the sea, and suddenly the wind rose and snatched the child 
from his side, bearing him along to the giddy cliff ; and when he, the 
father, thought to follow, invisible hands pushed him back. "Oh I 
mercy, my child, my child !" 

And now he, Annie, and "little Rob'* — ^poor sick brain, always 
Annie and " little Eob " now — are walking through a dark, narrow 
passage in the old city of Edinburgh, and William McGregor is en * 
deavouring to steal up behind them, dirk in hand, to stab the child. 

" Bun, Annie ; — ^run Eob." And bending over the pillow, with the 
hot tears almost blinding his vision, Eobert McGregor would apply 
cooling lotions to his father's head, until those troubled visions would 
pass away, and reason return to the patient's eyes. Then Eobert 
would be rewarded by a pressure of the hand, and the old smile of 
affection he was so familiar with. 

But towards the close of Doctor McGregor's illness, although his 
mind still wandered, his delusions were no longer of the horrible, and 
they that watched knew by the low murmuring of endearing words, 
and fitful smiles hovering on the trembling lips, that the phantoms 
which visited the dying man were loving and gentle, like the life that 
was passing away. 

It was evening. The sun dipping behind the forest, painted in 
innumerable colours the variegated autimin foliage ; through the open 
window came the pure air, scarcely stirring the white curtains of the 
window. Outside, hopping along the gravel walks of the garden, the 
robins gave forth their short musical notes ; inside, the old-fashioned 
dock on the stair landing ticked-ticked the progress of time. 

Doctor McGregor reclined in his son's arms. All that afternoon he 
had been sinking fast ; now, gradually, his eyes opened wide, a look 
of ineffable love came to them. 

" Kiss me, my boy," he whispered ; and even as his son pressed 
his lips, the spirit of a just man, of a man who loved his fellow-man, 
went up to (Jod. ^ . 

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Dead Broke. 151 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE FLITTEBS FAMILY. 

Thsrb is no period when inanimate nature has more direct influence 
upon us than when the young spirit is gradually emerging from the 
darkness of a first great sorrow into the light of returning happiness. 
It is the providence of Qod that the sorrow of the young shall not be 
lasting. Eight months before, Bobert McGregor had left his home, 
to wander, he cared not whither, his heart surcharged with sorrow, 
and deeming that a shadow had fallen upon his life that would never 
pass away ; and now, on a beautiful morning in the beautiful month 
of June, he found himself standing at the study window of his old 
home in P , and despite the sadness he would call back, by look- 
ing at the mementos of his father scattered around — drinking in with 
every emotion of the mind, with every pulse of the heart, with every 
thrill of his nerves, a tranqidl happiness that came to him through the 
subtile agencies of light and air, flowers and perfume, tree and shrub, 
bird and song. 

The garden, well cared for in his absence, was in a glow of beauty, 
and as he looked, the side gate opened and a young girl entered. She 
wore a spotless white muslin dress, a blue ribbon encircled her waist, 
and a rustic gipsy hat, from beneath which a cluster of brown curls 
fell over her neck, and shaded her face. She moved deftly among the 
flowers, plucking one here and there, and commenced forming them 
into a bouquet, that she raised from time to time to her face, to inhale 
its sweet odour. Not knowing that she was observed, there was a 
graceful aharuhn in her movements, that well became her young inno- 
cent face, and in such perfect harmony with the scene was her presence 
there, that a new beauty seemed added to flower, shrub and sunlight. 

For a minute or two Bobert McGregor remained looking at her, 
then going out of the front door, he walked round to the side, where 
she was still busy making up her bouquet. Hearing a step on the 
gravel walk behind her, she carelessly looked over her shoulder; but 
the moment she recognised who it was that approached, she turned 
round with such a frightened start, while all colour fled from her 
face, that JEtobert saw he had by his sudden appearance seriously 
alarmed her. He hurried forward to take her hand, for she seemed, 
indeed, as if she wanted support. 

'* Why, Lucy," he said, pressing the little hand, '* do you think it 
is my ghost you see ?" 

" Oh, no," she answered; " and I am very glad to see you ; but I 
did not know you had returned. When did you arrive ?" 

** Last night. I was looking out of the window when you came 
into the garden, and I was so glad to see you, and so anxious to shake 

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152 Dead Broke, 

hands with you, that I suppose I rushed out of the house as if I was 
going to apprehend a burglar, and so frightened you ; but the little 
Lucy Evans, that was my playmate long ago, used not to be so easily 
scared." 

By this time the blood had returned to Lucy's face, with a rein- 
forcement of rosy blushes, and she hastened to explain to Robert how 
his housekeeper, Mrs. Cass, had invited her to cull a bouquet from the 
garden whenever she pleased, on her way to her schooL " She saw 
me," said Lucy, ''one morning, about a week ago, looking in, I 
suppose, most wishfully upon the flowers, and gave me the invitation. 
But it is so awkward that you should find me here 1" 

" Oh, it is dreadful," replied Robert, smiling. ** I wonder where 
I could find a constable. Don't be trying to destroy the evidence of 
your guilt, Lucy." 

Poor Lucy was nervously pulling her fresh bouquet to pieces. 
" You are teaching school still, Lucy ?" 

" Tes ; and my aunt and all the family have emigrated to Iowa, 
and I am boarding at Mrs. Sims', and that is the way I come to pass 
by the cottage every morning on my way to the school-house." 

" I hope my return, Lucy, will not prevent you from gathering 
your morning bouquet." 

" Indeed it will, Mr. McGregor ; nevertheless, I am very glad to 
see you home again." 

" Mr. McGregor," repeated Robert. 

" Well, no, Robert," she answered, putting out her hand frankly ; 
" and now, good-morning ; I shall be late in the school-room." 

** I shall walk to the school-house with you, Lucy," said Robert. 
'' I cannot part with you so soon ; I want to ask so many questions; 
Tell me," he continued, as they left the garden together, ''has 
there been anything heard of James Allen ?" 

" I was going to ask you the same question, Robert. If anyone 
was to hear from him, surely it would be you." 

" So I might expect; but he has not written a line to me, and from 
a silly resolution he made, perhaps will not. But I was in hopes that, 

indirectly, some information about him might have reached P ^." 

<« "Mftf a tir/>rd that I have heard," answered Lucy. 

low of my poor father's death, James, I am sure, would 

)lish whim, and write or come to me." 

d into the face that had become, in a moment, so thought- 

'* Robert," she said, in a subdued voice, " I felt so sorry 

rou lost your father." 

'ou did, my good litUe Lucy," he answered. " I did 

^ what a good man he was until I lost him. I knew 

ind and loving he was to myself ; but, Luoy, after hia 

of people, the poor settlers around, came to me, each 

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Dead Broke. 153 

telHng what the doctor had done for him. It seems they were all 
under a promise never to divulge any of his acts of benevolence during 
his lifetime ; but absolved by his death from their promises, they told 
their various stories : how he had helped one to buy a farm, another 
to pay off a mortgage. There were a number of families he was iu 
the habit of giving warm clothing to coming on winter, and so on. 
His benevolence knew no bounds, Lucy ; I am proud of having had 
such a father-" 

By this time they had reached the school-house entrance, and both 
paused ; Lucy's face had become sad from sympathy, as she listened 
to Hobert speaking of his father ; and as the young man looked upon 
it now he felt love's passion kindling in his heart, even more rapidly 
than when a little while before in the garden he admired it in its 
fresh, smiling beauty. 

•* Well, Lucy," said he, as they parted, "if I am not to expect you 
will steal any more flowers, you cannot prevent me from presenting 
you with some." 

She gave him a friendly nod of acquiescence, and, tripping up the 
broad steps of the school-house, passed in, while Bobert returned to 
the cottage as much in l<)ve as it is necessaiy for a young gentleman 
of one or two-and-twenty to be. 

While Bobert McGFregor and Lucy were speaking in the garden, 
there were four pair of eyes intently watching them from the large 
brick house on the opposite side of the way. This house belonged 
to a Mr. Flitters, and the four pairs of eyes were those of Mrs. Flitters 
and the three Misses Flitters. 

This family had come to P after the death of Doctor McGregor; 

and while Bobert was away, Mrs. Flitters, by sundry conversatioas 
with Mrs. Cass, the housekeeper, had made herself familiar with a 
good many details of the McGregor family, some of which were vastly 
interesting to a lady with three marriageable daughters. For instance. 
Doctor McGregor had left his son quite well off. The young man 
was of prepossessing appearance, " and quite green, I should judge," 
remarked Mrs. Flitters, as she retailed the information she had 
gathered to her husband. 

This gentleman may be regarded as the founder of the Flitters 
family, as none of its members were known to the fashionable oirdes 
of the Bowery, in New York, until his time. He was one of those 
brainless little men that are always fortunate in money matters, with- 
out either themselves or anybody else being able to tell why. He had 
set himself down on a high stool behind the counter of a small grocery 
store, in the Boweiy, New York ; and money came to him and stuck 
to him like bamades to a rock. Even a spendthrift wife, with a Boman 
nose and a lofty ambition, characteristic of such a magnificent organ, 
could not destroy his prosperity ; she was a heavy drain upon the till. 

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154 Decui Broke. 

but the money came in faster than she conld take it out, and eveij 
year it increased. 

Shrewd, intelligent men, making commercial pursuits a science, 
went into the market every day to buy, and were frequently ruined. 
But when, without any calculation or forethought, Flitters bought a 
large quantity of sugar, lard, butter, or anything else in his line of 
business, the article he purchased was sure to run up forthwith to a 
high figure. In his dealings he was strictly honest, and saving in 
expenses, unless where Mrs. Flitters was concerned. 

There was a strong conviction in his befogged little mind, intro- 
duced there, perhaps by the Boman nose, that Mrs. Flitters was a 
superior being, requiring a good many extras, which it was his duty 
to supply, and which she was very likely to take, anyhow ; and as he 
was, in his mild undemonstrative way, proud of his wife, and there was 
really nothing mean or sordid in his nature, he let her have her own 
way in everything, and was as happy as it was possible for a simple, 
timid little man to be, who was the owner of such a high-blooded 
animal as Mrs. Flitters. Consequently, when Mrs. Flitters proposed 
that they should sell out in New York, in order to get rid of the 
'•Boweiy trash," ^s she expressed it, "and move out West, where 
their money would get them into society, and where the girls would 
get first-class husbands," Eichard Flitters made no objection. Ho 
sold out his business stock to great advantage — the man who stepped 
into his shoes becoming a bankrupt in a very short time afterwards — 

came on with his'f amily to P , bought the brick house opposite Inver- 

ness Cottage for a dwelling, opened a large grocery and provision store 

in P , and the same good luck that attended him heretofore continued 

with him. Within three months after he had opened his store, he was 
doing the largest business of any trader in town. 

Mr. Flitters was a smooth, polished little man on the outside. He 
had sleek, black hair, cut dose, and coming straight down on the upper 
part of his forehead. On the top of his head was a polished bald spot* 
His face was round, shining, and without a wrinkle. He had rosy 
cheeks, and mild, pleading brown eyes. Never was there another 
grocery and provision dealer with such an innocent face ; and mer- 
cantile bummers, on entering his well-stocked store for the first time, 
were apt to mistake him for a junior derk, and ask to see Mr. Flitters. 
Then Mr. Flitters' hand would seek the bald spot on the top of his 
head, pass from thence gently down his face, and, the brown eyes 
emerging from the palm of his hand, would seemingly appeal in the 
gentlest manner possible for mercy, while Mr. Flitters would mildly 
answer : "That's my name, sir ; what is your pleasure V^ His family, 

when he arrived in P , consisted of his wife, three grown-up 

daughters, and a little son of about six years of age. In personal 
appearance Mrs. Flitters might be said literally to stand out in strong^ 

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Dead Broke. 155 

oontraat to lier husband ; but that I cannot forget I am attempting to 
X>ortra7 the personal appearance of an estimable lady, I would say 
bluntly that Mrs. Plitters was built for strength. Mr. Flitters was 
he^rd to say in confidence to friends, that Mrs. Flitters was an able 
woman, but whether he meant mentally or physically was never known. 
She was tall and robust, with a stem, but by no means homely face. 
Her eyes were gray, and her large Boman nose made them appear 
somewhat too small; she used to say that this style of nose was 
hereditary in her funily ; though who her grandfather was, was as 
great a mystery to the good lady as the pyramids of Egypt The female 
portion of the Flitters family brought to their new home the polish of 
the Bowery, with the assimiption of Fifth Avenue, and thus armed 
landed in theWest, like Cssar in Gaul, prepared to conquer. 

Before going west, Mrs. Flitters had been deluded by a Bowery 
legend, to the effect that young English noblemen, tired of the pomps 
and restraints of a court, f requenUy came to this country in disguise, 
and sought adventure and freedom in our Western States and Territories, 
and there was more than one instance in the annals of Bowery romance, 
where one of those noble scions of the English aristocracy had, in his 
assumed humble character of an American citizen, wood and won a 
fair Western maiden, and, returning with her to England, knocked her 
all of a heap — in Bowery parlance — by leading her through a long 
line of gorgeous liveried menials in plu^ breeches, up to his baronial 
castle, where he welcomed her as its mistress ; while his lady mother, 
the aged duchess, with a jewelled turban on her venerable head, im- 
printed a maternal kiss upon her plebeian cheek. 

Since her arrival in the West, Mrs. Flitters had seen no evidence 
of the presence of the English nobleman, but she was greatly interested 
in the details she heard from Mrs. Oass of the McGhregor family. 

The young man was e^q^ected home soon. It was not likely he 
would go into society while he was away, and he would, no doubt, be 
still in bad spirits on his return home, predisposed, in fact, to fall in 
love : melancholy people were always the most likely to fall in love. 
Lord Byron was always melancholy, and always falling in love. They 
should certainly make this young man's acquaintance the moment he 
returned, and bestow upon him all their sympathy. So reasoned and 
thought Mrs. Flitters. 

And here was the young man returned home without their knowing 
a word about it, receiving sympathy from somebody else, and it seem- 
ingly doing him good, too. 

Mrs. Flitters and her daughters had not the slightest doubt but 
that the person dressed in black, and speaking to Lucy Evans, was 
Bobert McGregor, and they would have continued to watch every 
movement and gesture of the two, who were quite unconscious of the 
four pairs of eyes gazing at them, but that a sudden scream from the 

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156 Dead Broke. 

beir of the house of FHtters, who had tumbled off the high chair he 
had climbed up, in order to add another pair of eyes to the flitters 
group, diverted their attention. 

While Mrs. Flitters was endeavouring to repair her shattered idol, 
who continued to scream and kick violentlj, Robert and Lucy had 
passed out of the garden down the street, and in a little while the 
former was seen returning alone to the cottage. More than once he 
was seen in the garden during the day, and from inquiries judiciously 
made, there was no longer any doubt of his identity. 

On his return in the evening, Mr. Flitters was made acquainted 
with the interesting fact of Bobert's return home, and it was settled 
in family council that Mr. Flitters, before going down town to his 
business the next day, should call on the young gentleman in the 
cottage. 

" You can go over about ten o'clock," said Mrs. Flitters, ^^ and 
apologise for calling so early, by stating your having to go to business." 

Early !" repeated Mr. Flitters, who was in the habit of getting up 
about five, and thought ten rather advanced in the day. 

Early for visitors, FHtters," remarked the able woman reprovingly. 
" Perhaps you had better give him an invitation to take tea with us after 
to-morrow. Ask him just in an off-hand way, not to stand on ceremony, 
we are such near neighbours. And say, of course he will only meet the 
family — * all in the family way, you know.* You will of course bring 
your card with you, and present it to Mr. McGregor." 

" Yes, my dear," said her husband, driving his hand into his side 
pocket, and producing a large business card, from which he com- 
menced reading : ** Family groceries, lard, butter, eggs ^" 

'' Stop !" exclaimed Mi*s. Flitters. Flitters' hand at once sought 
the bald spot on the top of his head, went sliding smoothly along, 
made the turn down, and when the brown eyes appeared again, they 
were quite prepared to say : '' May it please the cotirt, I acknowledge 
myself guilty, and throw myself upon the mercy of the court." 

" Is it possible," said Mrs. Flitters, "you would present that card 
in paying a visit ?** 

" It is the new card, my dear, I got yesterday ; — ^the printers do 
mighty good work here in the west," 

'' But, Flitters, that is not a visiting card ; — ^Polly, bring me my 
card-case ; here are the proper cards ; — you remember I made you get 
them before you left New York.*' 

'' Me. Richabd Fldtbbs." 

" I have been paying all your visits for you since we came here, and 
now you must pay one for yourself." 

*' Yexy^well, my dear ; — ^but I think this other card would be more 
^xplan— — — " 
FUttere!'' 

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St. Martha* s Home. 157 

" Yee, my dear." 

" Don't provoke me." 

" No, my dear f and the family council broke up, Flitters trotting 
back to his store, in the best of good humour, to enter some invoices, 
as it was decreed that he was to lose one or two business hours the 
next day by his intended visit to his neighbour. 

'*I wish Mrs. Flitters/' he thought, as he trotted along, <<had 
fixed the time for this visit at about half past six in the morning; but 
she knows best." 

{To he eontinudd.) 



ST. MAETHA'S HOME.* 

IT may be remembered that, in the year 1879, a few words concerning 
the position and needs of the young work-girls of the ciiy of 
Dublin appeared in the hospitable pages of this Magazine, and over 
again — we believe last year — ^it was announced through the same 
medium that, through the charitable activity of a few kind persons, 
a Catholic Home had been started, and made ready for the reception 
of a certain number of the dasa it was desired to benefit. 

St. Martha's Home has, indeed, for the last two years, been very 
quietly and imostentatiously accomplishing its work, and meeting 
a want, the existence of which had been for some time recognised. 
Of the great importance of placing a safe and comfortable Home, such 
as this is, within reach of the numerous class of persons employed as 
daily governesses, shop-assistants, and seamstresses, in Dublin, there 
cannot be question, and it is needless to recapitulate here the advan- 
tages which such an institution offers, and to compare them with the 
expenses, discomfort, mixed companionship, and, frequently, actual 
danger of chance lodgings through the city. It was a need which had 
been long supplied among our Protestant fellow-citizens, and the 
wonder was iJiat St. Martha had not already busied herself on the 
matter in behalf of her own daughters. That she has at last done so 
is, however, a pleasant fact, and the object of these few lines is hereby 
to acquaint those who are interested in the Home with the work it has 
done during the past year. 

From September, 1880, to December, 1881, it has received seventy- 
four persons, of whom fourteen have beeui through its instrumentality, 

* Particnlan of the Boles, Ac., will be forwarded on application to the Matron, 
3 Lower Qlooccater-itreet, Dublin. 

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158 SL Martha*s Home. 

provided with situationB, while others have found employment by 
advertifiing and other means. It may thus be seen that the faunates 
of St. Martha's meet with opportunities of suiting themselves in situa- 
tions, of which they might not otherwise hear. It is pleasant to know 
that during the past year one young girl has, through the influence of 
kind friends, been comfortably provided for in Paris, after having long 
vainly sought employment at homeu It is, indeed, sad to think of the 
miserably dull state of trade which at present exists in Dublin, and 
which deprives so many of even the bare means of subsistence. Several 
of the girls, usually fully employed in business houses in the city, are 
now entirely, or nearly, altogether without work. In many cases they 
can only obtain it for two or three days in the week, payment for which 
is quite inadequate to their support ; and when, as is often the case, 
these poor girls' parents live in the country, they are quite unable to 
pay for board and lodging in town, and are compelled to return home 
with the hope of getting to America or Australia in the spring. 

St. Martha has, as is to be expected, suffered from the general 
depression. If only things would happily return to their normal 
state, and our poor country enjoyed her fair share of prosperity and 
peace, the Home would rapidly fill with the class for which it is in- 
tended, and become nearly self-supporting, which, alas ! it has not yet 
proved to be. It is well managed, and is in every respect what it pro- 
fesses to be — a thoroughly safe and respectable Home, where, on the 
most moderate terms possible, those who are toiling and working all 
day may find repose, comfort, and companionship on their return 
each evening^ There is a general parlour, with fire, lights, and books, 
where they can enjoy a few hours' relaxation after the fatigues of the 
day, or in which those who have work to do can do it. It is, besides, 
a reliable place of reference, where, as has been said above, oppor- 
tunities of hearing of employment and situations may possibly arise ; 
and it is presumed that parents, sending their yoxmg daughters to the 
city, in which they may have no friends or relations to take charge of 
them, will rejoice in the existence of an institution of this kind, which 
offers some substitute for their own guardianship and protection. 

Let us then hope that St. Martha's may prosper. It has not as yet 
been quite full, and, at the present moment, there are a few vacancies 
which, perhaps, some persons reading these lines may see their way 
to fill. For a character of the Home we may, with confidence, refer to 
those who have passed some time within its walls, and who have ex- 
perienced its advantages. Its rules are simple and easy to observe. 
Its charges are most moderate, and we have every reason to hope that, 
in proportion as it becomes known, not only in Dublin, but all over 
the country, its hospitality will be more and more in demand, and its 
usefulness more widely recognised. It would be well that ladies resid- 
ing in the country, and sending some protegee up to town, should 

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SI. Marthds Home. 159 

remember St. Martha's, where her humble friend, if she has yet to 
find a situation, may, during the interral, lodge, or if she is already 
provided with daily work, may have a safe shelter at night, where she 
will be preserved from the hundred dangers which ruin many a young 
Kfe, and wreck many a bright promise. We all know, and have 
frequently thought of and admired, the splendid work which is carried 
on at High Park, and other reformatories in the city. But, through 
the agency of St. Martha's, it is hoped that many an inexperienced 
young person will be spared temptation and trial, and that in the 
threshold of the unknown world she is about to enter the kindly Sainfs 
sympathy and encouragement will guide her safely along the path of 
duty and happiness. 

We have been requested not to close this brief notice of St. Martha's 
Home without mentioning two other Institutions or Associations which 
have lately been established in Dublin, viz., << The Nurses' Training 
Institution," and *' The Prisoner's Aid Association," both of which are 
under the immediate patronage of His Grace the Archbishop, and are 
deserving of the warmest sympathy and encouragement. 

The first of these will, it is hoped, be in time a self-supporting 
Institution, and it has been started for the purpose of providing intel- 
ligent, experienced, and thoroughly reliable Catholic nurses, to attend 
the sick, rich and poor, and of all denominations, in hospitals or in 
private houses,. This institution is in connection with Steevens' 
Hospital, where the aspirants receive their training, aAd are well pre- 
pared and qualified for their work ; and a house has been opened on 
Usher's Quay (No. 26), in which a staff of nurses is maintained, and 
where business is transacted by the committee. This house is under 
the care of an experienced matron, to whom candidates for employment 
should apply ; but it is well to mention that while attending the Hos- 
pital, the nurses are under the authority of the Lady Superintendent, 
and are at her disposal. The term for their engagement is three years, 
during which they are boarded, fed, and paid a salary. 

It is, however, not necessary to enter upon details here, where it 
is only desired to call attention to this excellent institution, the useful- 
ness of which, it may be confidently expected, will soon be discovered. 
It must, indeed, be a real comfort to us all to know, that we have in 
our midst a staff of skilled, and thoroughly trained Catholic nurses, 
wearing a particular dress, bound by certain rules, and responsible 
for their good behaviour and general efBcienoy to the Institution which 
provides them, and where every information concerning them will be 
cheerfully given. One of these rules obliges each nurse to bring back 
a certificate of good conduct and efficiency, from the family or doctor 
of the case she has been attending ; and it is trusted that tlds practical 
supervision, combined with the due preparation for her work, which 
she has received, will make her a useful, intelligent, and reliable 
attendant upon the sick. Digitized by GoOglc 



I oo Si. Martha's Home. 

The "Priaoner's Aid Association" belongs to quite another category 
of philanthropic schemes, and is a purely benevolent work, for the 
forwarding of which much charity, good-will, money, and activity 
are needful. It is considerably less than a year since it was formed, 
and yet it has already done not a little good. Its [object, which must 
appeal to every thoughtful mind and kindly heart, is to afford aid to 
a certain dass of discharged prisoners, to whom kindly assistance and 
encouragement may prove of incalculable benefit, and save, indeed, 
from relapse into crime and utter degradation. Its plan is extremely 
simple. A committee of ladies has been appointed, some of whom go 
each week to Grangegorman Prison, and ascertain from the matron, 
and by personal inspection what prisoners, capable of reformation and 
whose character justifies expectation that attempts to serve them 
will not be thrown away, will soon be discharged. If such be 
found, they are brought to the Home, which has been opened in North 
King'Street, and the committee busies itself in either finding situations 
for those persons whom, upon the recommendation of the matron, and 
its own judgment, it can trust to fill them properly ; or in affording 
them means to emigrate, and to begin life afresh under new auspices, 
and with new associations. A few situations have been already found 
for some poor prisoners, whose crimes belonged to a class not likely 
ever again to be repeated, and whose repentance was sincere and trust- 
worthy ; while in nineteen other cases, the good offices of the committee 
have procured admission for penitents into some of the reformatories 
of the city. This, with three or four cases of emigration, may be looked 
upon as the new beginning of a good work which, as in many other 
instances, our Protestant feUow-citizens have been before us in estab- 
lishing in the city. As is pretty generally known, there has been a 
Protestant Prison Mission for some time in Dublin, at which many 
ladies have been working with the greatest activity. It is certainly 
high time that we Catholics should imitate their example. We may 
not, it is true, be willing or able to join the committee, and take actual 
part in the working of this truly benevoleat scheme, which will in- 
fallibly save many a poor erring sister from the cruel and lasting 
consequences of a fault, into which she may have been betrayed 
through inexperience, or the dire temptation of extreme poverty. But, 
at least, we may give our sympathy and encouragement to the practi- 
cal efforts of those who are labouring so cheerfully and efficaciously 
for the benefit of a class of persons, whom their efforts will restore to 
sodeiy, self-reliance, virtue, and happiness.* 

* SubscriptioDs in aid of the Prisoner's Aid AeaociAtion will be reoeired bj tbe 
« Committee," No. 62, North King-street. 



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( i6i ) 



LIFE'S WOEK 

TO bend the will to daily toil, 
To take what comes resignedly. 
To hold the heart from earfchly soil, 
Is Heaven to win assuredly. 

To take what comes, to bend the will — 
How shortly said ! yet toughest strife 

Who tries to dimb the holy hill 
Shall find this struggle of a life. 

And all must climb. AhnegH $e 

Is watchword of the Christian camp. 
No craven heart shall win the day — 

Who combats self bears heaven's stamp. 

A tiring strife, a combat sore. 
Where some fail oft, and some are brave. 

No dead are here nor human gore, 
But crushed desires and prayer must save. 

But, oh ! the peace of such a life ! * 

Hath selfishness known ever rest, 
'Mid plots and heart's unending strife 

To have what vain desire holds best ? 

'Mid racking envy, hate, and spite, 
Detractions, theft, and false pretence — 

Yile brood that, shrinking from the light. 
Bring evil dire and woe immense! 

Ah, yes ! the peace of not desiring, 

Taking what comes as heaven-sent. 
With lowly thoughts and prayer imtiring — 

Thus may oiir pilgrim years be spent ! 

The guerdon sweet, Jem mi I 
When the slow sands at length are run, 

For all who hold the motto high, 

" Nbt my own will but thine be done !" 

F. M. E. 

YoL. X. No. 105. 13 

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( i6a ) 



WHO WAS FATHER ABNOLD? 

AYEB Y interesting and learned lecture was onoe delivered in aa 
Irish country town, on Oelenschlager. The gentleman who 
moved a vote of thanks to the lecturer said, he had come to the lecture 
partly to find out whether Oelenschlager was a machine, a man, or a 
TnineraL He found out that he was a gifted Danish noveHst and poet, 
j think, who flourished in the first years of this century. 

Our readers will approach oiir present subject with almost as com- 
plete ignorance of what it is : for one must know something about 
Pather Arnold before inquiring who he was. He was the author of 
one of the most successful ascetic works published of late years. The 
English translation, very well executed and very well printed, is pub- 
lished by Messrs. Bums & Oates of London ; and the title-page runs 
thus : " The Imitation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, in Four Books, 
by the Hot. Father Arnold, of the Society of Jesus ; translated from 
he Latin by a Father of the same Society." Kot a word is added any- 
where to indicate the country to which Father Arnold belonged or when 
his book was written. This silence seems to us very undesirable. The 
translator might, very properly, have given a few words of preface^ 
informing us as to these and other personal matters : for, really, the 
book is worth such trouble. 

We are, thBrefore, grateful to Father H. P. Yanderspeeten, S.J., 
for gratifying, at last, our pious curiosity in his ** Notice Biographique 
sur le P6re Pierre Aemoudt de la Compagnie de Jesus,'' prefixed to 
the new French translation of the work. 

'^Arnold" is a misleading translation of ''Amoldus/' and would 
lead us to take our author for an Englishman or a German, whereas 
he was an honest Fleming, Peter James Aemoudt, the son of Charles 
Aemoudt and Colette Van de Yelde, bom at the village of Moere, in 
West Flanders, on the 17 th of May, 1811. When he was about two 
years old, he fell into the fire and was so nearly burned to death that 
the scars remained ever after. Another memento of this accident was 
the loss of one of the fingers of the right hand, which was amputated 
by the village carpenter, though a certain Br. Kelderman had the 
carriage of the proceedings. His early education was of the simplest 
kind — picked up, during the months of two or three winters, from an 
old dame of the village, who broke up school in the summer, to earn 
her crust by working in the fields. He thus learned the three Bs, — 
*• reading, 'ritin', and 'rithmetic," — "II savait Hre, ^crire, et calculer,'* 
and he knew '^ le petit et le grand cat^hisme'' when he made his 
First Communion, before he had finished his tenth year, the third of 
May, 1821. After that event he was supposed to be mature enough 



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Who was Father Arnold f 163 

to begin the work of life, and to contribute his earnings to the family 
sapport Like most of bis comrades be learned tbe art of weaving, 
at wbicb be became veiy skilful. 

About tbe year 1830, a good priest of a neigbbouring parisb beard 
an edifying account of tbe youth, and of tbe desire which still haunted 
him to become a priest. This M. de Bruine bad, himself, been put on 
tbe way of becoming a priest by being taught Latin by a good priest, 
who laid on bis pupil tbe obligation of helping forward some youth 
similarly circumstanced. As tbe bishops' seminaries were then dosed 
by the Qovenmient, he taught Peter Aemoudt in bis own presbyteiy, 
and, when times improved, be procured bis admission into a boarding- 
school, opened by the Franciscans at Thielt. For bis glory and not 
bis shame we mention that be was received here almost for nothing, 
undertaking (as emigrants have sometimes done on board ship) to 
" work bis passage out " — ^taking care of tbe lamps, serving in tbe 
ref ectoiy, and making himself otherwise useful in tbe college. I hope 
one of bis old professors is not deceived when be states that these 
menial services did not lessen the esteem in which be was held by bis 
Bcbool-fellows. 

When be had spent three years at this school, his plans were again 
upset. Tbe Franciscan fathers, in 1834, wishing to conform more 
strictly to their Lostitute, gave up tbe boarding-school, which they had 
only undertaken on account of the necessities of the time. But Provi- 
dence opened another asylum for tbe pious and studious young man. 
His classical educationjwas completed in an institution which seems to 
have resembled those Apostolic Schools which have sprung up of late 
in France, and one of which has just begun its holy work in Ireland, 
in connection with the Jesuit College of the Sacred Heart, at Limerick. 
It was with a view to a missionary career that be sought and obtained 
admission into a school maintained at Turnbout by a veiy worthy 
Catholic layman, Peter de Nef, who devoted his fortune to tbe cause 
of Catholic education before tbe ''emancipation" of the Belgians: 
for they, too, were emancipated. 

When he bad passed through the Ehetoric class, Peter Aemoudt 
broke to his parents bis plan of placing tbe Atlantic between him and 
them, in order to obey what he felt to be the call of God. God gave 
them, also, grace to perform their part of the sacrifice. In September, 
1835, tbe Jesuit postulant quitted bis native village, which he was 
never to see again. He joined, at Tumhout, five companions of bis 
missionary exile ; and they reached their destination, St. Louis, on an 
auspicious day — ^the eve of St. Francis Xavier, December 2nd. After 
resting a little from tbe very great hardships of travel, the brave young 
men began their noviceship, on the last day of tbe year 1 836, in the 
College of fit. Stanislaus, not far from St. Louis, tbe capital of 
Missouri. 

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1 64 Who was Father Arnold f 

Peter Aemoudt, after his noyitiate, was appointed to teach the 
humamty dasBOB suoceBsiYely in sereral ooUeges. He was distingoiBhed 
for his assiduous application to the higher classical studies, and for 
his great piety and f eryent obsenrance of role. As the reason why he 
is mentioned in these pages is because he is the author of a yery pious 
ascetic work, it is edifying to find that, as a professor of classics, he 
was enthusiastically deyoted to classical literature. It would be a 
false asceticism that would haye, in those circumstances, giyen him a 
disrelish^f or Greek and Latin. Among his manuscripts, after his death, 
were found a Ghreek grammer, compiled by himself, a Greek epic poem 
of considerable length, and a collection of odes in the same language. 
He was ordained priest in 1848. To this period belongs the com- 
position of his work, De Imitatione SanettBsimi Cordis Jem^ Zihri Quatuor, 
Earlier in his religious life he had made the yow ''to spread, to the 
utmost of his power, the deyotion to the Sacred Heart," which, after 
his death, was found written with his own hand and enclosed in the 
bronze crucifix he had been in the habit of using. To this yow he 
added the promise neyer deliberately to commit a yenial sin. He had 
entitled himself to aspire to seek peiHfection, by the extraordinary piety 
and fidelity that he displayed in his daily life. 

The manuscript of his book was sent to Kome, in 1846, to be sub« 
mitted to the Fatiier General, John Boothaan, who wrote to thank him 
for choosing such a subject, adding that he had placed it for examina- 
tion in the hands of a learned and pious Father. How it happened 
we know not, but Father Koothaan, though he liyed seyeral years, 
seems to haye taken'no further notice of poor Father Aemoudt and his 
book. Perhaps it was the fault of the troubled tunes ; for it was soon 
after this that the Jesuits, not for the first or the last time, were turned 
out of Bome, and Father Boothaan took the opportunity of yisiting 
Ireland, among other places — ^the first General of the Society that eyer 
set foot in our island.* The fact, at any rate, is that for nearly twenty 
years, during which the Jesuit Missionary might haye had, during his 
lifetime, the consolation of speaking to many hearts through his solid 
and beautiful book, the manuscript lay forgotten at Bome, till, seyeral 
years after Father Boothan's death, it chanced to catch the eye of his 
successor. Father Peter Beckx, still feliciier regnam. Father Beckx, a 
Pelgian, saw the 'great merit of the work of his feUow-countiyman 
who, during all those long years, had not sent one line of enquiry 
about his beloyed manuscript, concluding, probably, that it had been 
judged expedient quietly to suppress it. Perhaps the humility that 
the author thus showed was the source of some part of its fruitfulness. 
Authors are, sometimes, just a little impatient of delays, and are prone 

* See a rery lirely and interesting account of " Father Bootbaan's Visit to Maj- 
nooth/' in the first Tolmne of Dr. Murray's '< Irish Annual MisoeUanj," or " Essajs 
etMLj TheologicaL" 

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Who was Father Arnold i 165 

to imagine that if their book or poem do not burst on the world at 
some particular date, it will be a serious misfortune for mankind in 
general. But mankind in general have sufficient fortitude to endure 
a much longer delay. 

However, Father Amoudt had not passed away from earth before 
his book began to exercise on pious souls the influence which is sure 
to continue for many generations. In 1863 it appeared first in the 
original Latin, at Einsiedlin, in Switzerland, and was quickly translated 
into the principal languages of Europe. For instance, we have here 
before us two distinct French translations, and one of them already in 
a second edition as early as 1867. The English version was probably 
made by an American Jesuit, for we have made enquiries in vain among 
the English Fathers of the Society. The English publisher informs 
us that he has issued eleven large editions of the work in English ; 
and he adds that still larger and more numerous editions have been 
put in circulation in America. The pious author was spared the danger 
of witnessing this extraordinary success. He died a most holy death 
on the 29th of July, 1865. 

There is a veiy great prejudice against those pious books which are 
like serious parodies on other works of high character. Few can relish 
even the ''Imitation of the Blessed Virgin." The half-inspired 
" Imitation of Christ" is enough. In spite of this the '' Imitation of 
the Sacred Hecurt"* has secured a firm hold on the hearts of the pious 
faithful. Its characteristics are unction and solidity. Every page is 
full of deep and practical spirituality. Solid learning, also, is displayed 
occasionally, as in the striking and apposite passages from the fathers 
of all the centuries consecutively, which are woven together in one of 
the chapters about confession. 

Hay this brief notice of Peter Aemoudt, or Arnold, professed 
Father of the Sodeiy of Jesus, procure some additional readers for the 
holy book which alone preserves his name. 

M. B. 

* Another book with the same title was published in French by the Abb^ Cirot de 
la Ville with the approbation of Cardinal Donnet and of Pius IX. himself, and had 
reached a third Edition in 1858, five years before Father Aemoudt's book was pub- 
lished. 



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( i66 ) 



NEW BOOKS. 

L A Memoir of the Life and Death of the Rev. Father Augmtw Henry 
Zaw, S,J. Ponnerlj an officer in the Koyal Navy. Part I. 
(London : Bums & Oates. 1882.) 

Ohb of Oerald Griffin's ballads ends each stanza with this cry of a 

father mourning the death of his son : — 

'* Mo chuma I lorn am I, 
That death a backward course should hold. 
To smite the young and spare the old.*' 

It is more natural for a son to write his father's memoir than for 
a father to be his son's biographer. No such complaint as this is made 
here, yet a very pathetic tone runs through the few modest words of 
introduction which Mr. Law prefixes to this record of his Jesuit son. 
This first part reaches only his fifteenth year, and is very properly 
styled by the reviewer in The Weekly Register, '* The Boyhood of Father 
Augustus Law." He might have added, <' as described in his letters." 
It is, in itself, veiy affecting to perceive the tender fidelity which 
treasured up all the letters of a mere child, beginning with his eleventh 
year. The editor of the volume is the Hon. William Towry Law, 
son to the first Lord Ellenborough. Augustus was his eldest son. 
Those who, like the present writer, knew him in his maturity, will see 
in this boyish correspondence another proof of the truth of Words- 
worth's dictum, " The child is father to the man." There is the same 
bright, joyous candour, the same affectionate, kindly nature, and 
already, the same self-denying manliness of character. We are 
allowed, incidentally, glimpses at other members of the family group, 
which betray such goodness and natural piety as make us wonder less 
at 80 many of them obtaining the grace of conversion and religious 
vooation. 

Father Law died, under peculiarly heroic circumstances, as a 
pioneer missionary to the idolatrous natives in the heart of AMca, 
November 25th, 1880. The latest date reached in the present instal- 
ment is October, 1848, We trust we shall be made, as far as possible, 
equally familiar with this saintly and amiable soul in the thirty-two 
years which lie between these dates. May Mr. W. T. Law have the 
consolation of completing his pious task in spite of his '' advanced age 
and very precarious health." 

To the subject of this memoir we are sure to return. We cannot 
dose our brief notice without remarking that the long and delightful 
letter at page 63 would go far to make Nwerea an amiable and endear- 
ing name. 

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New Books. 167 

n. JUqiou fnm iKe Annah of the Sisien of Mtrey. Bt a ICimbib or 
THx Okdsb op Mebot. (New York : Catholic Publication Society. 
1881.) 

Thb first Tolume of this work, the only one yet published, relates, of 
course, to Ireland, the motherland of the Order. The copy which has 
been sent to us is marked, '* Second Edition," though the work has 
but recently appeared. The writer (we may venture on giving her 
name in full) is Mother Austin Carroll, the Superior of the Sisters in 
New Orleans, one of the numberless brave Irishwomen who have 
followed the Irish race in its exodus to keep it still Irish and Catholic. 
Besides her very entertaining ** Life of Mother M'Auley," to which we 
have sometimes had occasion to refer with warm appreciation, the title 
page of the present work describes her as being authoress of a '' Life 
of St. Alphonsus," "Lifeof Venerable Clement Hofbauer," "Glimpses 
of Pleasant Homes," '* Happy Hours of Childhood," "Angel Dreams," 
'' By the Seaside," &c. The etcetera includes translations of some solid 
spiritual works like Father St. Jure's "Treatise on the love and 
Imowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." Four of the items of the above 
catalogue are story-books. They must be more than harmless, and 
they must be well-written and lively. Considering the insatiable 
appetite of our young people for tales, and the dearth of tales that are 
edifying without being stupid, it is strange that Mother Austin 
Carroll's stories are not better known in Catholic lending libraries and 
convents in Ireland. We, at least, have never seen them or seen any- 
one who had seen them. 

This well-printed volume of 620 pages consists of fifty-one chapters 
and, very judiciously, the first pages are occupied by a clear and 
minute summary of each chapter. No one can read this list of items 
without feeling his curiosity awakened. No doubt many parts will 
interest chiefly the members of the Order, and their immediate friends, 
especially in the localities sanctified by the different convents whose 
history is given. But the general [reader also will find the volume 
very entertaining, and not a little instructive. As we have said, we 
shall find ourselves obliged to return to these "Leaves from the Annals 
of the Sisters of Mercy;" and, therefore, we content ourselves at 
present with this brief preliminary notice, and warm words of welcome. 

m. StwrieM of the Christian Schools, By Elizabeth M. Stbwaht, 
Authoress of " Lord Dacre^of Gilsland," &c. (London : Bums and 
Gates. 1882.) 
Thb " Christian Schools," of which there is question here, are those 
taught by the Christian Brothers. We cannot say whether the book 
is partly a translation. The snippety paragraphs of a 'French feuiUeton 
are unhappily imitated, almost every sentence being dignified with the 
appearance of a paragraph. On the other hand Irish names are used 

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1 68 New Books. 

in some of the storiee, with a good deal of vexy false bxogae. For 
instance, Irish peasants never say iape for devp. 

It is hardly fair for an old fogey to criticise what is meant for the 
young ; but the present reviewer has given some of these edifying 
tales a fair chance of exercising their fascination upon him. They 
did not avail themselves of the chance to any considerable extent- 
But the same fate would certainly befall many a book that proves a 
success. 

IV. Some of the PeriodicaU. (Various Publishers.) 
The youngest, perhaps, of our contemporaries has just paid us its first 
visit from far-off Australia — Hie Sydney University BevieWy of which 
Ko. I. is dated, November, 1881. We, hoaxy-headed patriarchs, must 
patronise young beginners kindly : so we give our cordial ceade mile 
failte to 7^ Sydney University Eeview, even though only ''published three 
times a year." Could they not concoct one more number per annum 
and make it an orthodox quarterly ? Even four times a year is a slow 
rate for this go-ahead time. The great Quarterlies have lost their 
influence in great part. Yet across the Atlantic comes punctually I%e 
American Catholic Quarterly (published by Hardy and Mahony, of 
Philadelphia), solid, well- written, and instructive. Almost as large 
is the monthly Catholie Worlds which the Paulists of New York have 
maintained for many years at a high standard. In Its fiction there is 
a falling off since the time of " The House of Yorke " and •* Pearl.'' 

Another of our Transatlantic visitors is The Scholastic Annual, pub- 
lished by Professor Lyons, of Notre Dame University, Indiana. It is 
excellent. We have nothing like it at home. It has appeared already 
for seven years. May it endure through the twentieth century, which 
is looming nearer and nearer, though many of us will be far away 
when it comes. We have been specially pleased with Father Hudson's 
graceful lecture on Longfellow, and with this sonnet on '' St. Cecilia's 
Bridal," by our own contributor, " Ethel Tane," too long a stranger 
to our pages. 

" Show me the angel, thy unseen defender. 

If 8uch in yery truth is by thy side— 

I ask no more !" Cecilia's bridegroom cried. 
But softly she, with glance seyerely tender : — 
*' Thine eyes, Valerian, cannot bear his splendour. 

Gto, seek our priests, that in Bome's earems hide : 

When thou retumest, changed and sanctified, 
Perchance that awful glory he will render." — 

He comes again, and lo ! no Tision chilling 
Stands, sword in hand, to greet the neophyte : 

Strange, subtle fragrance all the room is filling : 
A gracious spirit waits with garlands bright : 

And fair Cecilia kneels, no more unwilling, 
To pledge with him a mystic hearenly plight.'' 

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New Books. 169 

Coming nearer home, we welcome cordially The CaihoUo Literary 
Circular. (London: Bums and Gates.) We are so mnoh pleaaed 
with its evident determination to be candid in its oriticismB, and not 
to praise a book simply because written by a Catholic, that we condone 
a personal passage, across which the editor might judidonsly have 
drawn his pen and written in the margin, dele. 

The new outlet for Irish literary talent, Jlihemia, which began its 
career in Dublin on last New Year's Day, is not a magazine of light 
literature. It eschews stories and verse, and devotes itself to art and 
criticism. We welcome it all the more warmly that it belongs to quite 
a different sphere from our own. Vivat Hibemia! 

Yet another of our contemporaries must be mentioned here with 
sympathy, for the simple reason that, though published in London, 
it enlists the services of many Irish pens. For instance, in the current 
iBsue, Tineley^e Magazine has an appetising instalment of a lively serial 
tale by a young Irishman, W. B. Guinee ; and a tender and delightful 
paper on poor Clarence Mangan, by Mr. Eichard Dowling, whose last 
novel, we perceive, has won very high praise from the Athenaeum^ the 
Academy^ the Standard, the Morning Post, Life, &c. Other Irish con- 
tributors to Tineley tiiis month are Mr. Nathanael Colgan— whose 
daintily executed sketches of foreign scene our readers gratefully 
remember — and our young poetess. Miss Katharine Tynan, who gives 
the name of " The Lark's Waking " to this very delicious sonnet. 

'* O paesionate heart! before the day is bom. 
When the faint roee of dawn is on the skies, 
Dost thou not wait, couched in long grass that lies 
Sweet and bejewelled with the dews of morn, 
Till the low wind of daybreak in the com 
HoTes all the silken ears with languorous sighs, 
And the fair sun, in glorified uprise, 
Comes with bright robes of state right kingly worn ? 
Then dost thou cleaye the air on rapturous wing, 
Where the far east, with roseate splendours fraught, 
Tells that no more can night enshroud thy king, 
Or the pale stars his empire set at naught — 
Hi^erand higher, till the clear skies ring 
With the wild amorous greeting thou hast brought.*' 

Y. Pamphlete. (Various Publishers.) 
Thb learned Dr. Ward, whose son, Mr. Wilfrid Ward, has made an 
excellent dihU in the current Nineteenth Century, almost in the same 
field of thought in which the late editor of The Dublin Review has dis- 
tinguished himself so splendidly — Dr. Ward has reprinted his paper 
in the last Dublin, on the Philosophy of the Theistic Oontroversy. An 
American Sister of Mercy has forwarded a little drama of the Gk>lden 
Jubilee, which she calls ** Aureae Laudes Oatharinae." Mr. Hugh 
Bonnar has written a small tract on the subject, " How kMlevelop 

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I70 New Books. 

Irish Hanufaotures and IndustrieB." (M. H. Oill & Son). Pather 
Anderdon, S. J. has made a yery telling controyersial tract out of two 
of his recent lectures, '' Questions and Answers." (Bums & Oates.) 

VI. Two new School Eutories of I}ngland. 
The first is '* A Concise History of England, by P. V. Joyce, LL.D., 
M.E.I.A." (M. H. Gill and Son.) Dr. Joyce's great practical ex- 
perience has enabled him to produce a book which is sure to be really 
serviceable, condensing into 150 pages a very clear summary of the chief 
eyents from the earliest times to the year 1815. The clearness of style 
and arrangement is helped by certain details in the use of various sorts 
of type. The young historical student will find this book a great 
help. 

The other book, by Mr. T. J. Livesey, only brings the history of 
England down to the Wars of the Roses. It is more juvenile and less 
practical than its Dublin rival, and has many good pictures, and some 
ballads, fortimately not original. Messrs. Burns and Oates make this 
No. 1 1 . of their ** Granville History Readers " — so called, perhaps, out 
of compliment to Granville Mansions, their new publishing house, in 
which we wish them a long career of utility and prosperity, true to the 
spirit of the worthy founder of the firm — James Bums. 

VU. The new Portrait of Cardinal Newman. 
Though this paragraph is found under the heading of " New Books," 
it]does not refer to Mr. Jenning's recent biography of the great Cardinal, 
to which, kindly meant and pleasantly written as it is, we think the Iriih 
Ecclesiastical Record paid a most extravagant compliment last month- 
To be noticed at all by "P. M." was compliment enough. The por- 
trait before us now is the only one that represents to us Cardinal 
Newman as he is, "a man (says The Times) bending under the weight 
of fourscore years, his face deeply furrowed, but with a brightness in 
the eyes which suggests that his work is yet far from being done.*' Let 
us give the venerable man's own words on the subject: — 

** It is, indeed, most acceptable to me, and a very thoughtful kind- 
ness, that you should have proposed to provide a memorial of me for 
time to come, and memorial so specially personal, which, years hence, 
will bring back vividly the remembrance of the past to those who have 
known me, and will carry on into the future a tradition of what I was 
like to the many who never saw me. ... In carrying out your purpose 
you have had recourse to a man of widely-acknowledged genius, whose 
work, now finished, is generally pronounced to be worthy of his re- 
putation, and is found by competent judges to claim more and more 
admiration the more carefully it is studied.'' 

Mr. Ouless, A.B.A. is almost the greatest of living portrait-painters, 
and M. Bajon is, certainly, the greatest of living etchers. 



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( lyi 



THE FOSTEE-FATHER'S ANTHOLOGY. 

BT THE EDITOB. 

Pabt I. 

AN anthology means a gathering of flowers ; and the foster-father 
in whose honour these flowers are gathered is Joseph, spouse of 
the Blessed Virgin Mary. 

These flowers spring up most seasonably with the crocuses in March, 
for March is St. Joseph's own month, for a reason which Aubrey de 
Yere indicates in one of his Legends of SW^Fatrichy where he allows 
himself to think of a much earlier saint than our great apostle : — 

" Of Hebrew patriarchs last 
And chief. The Holj House at Nazareth 
He ruled benign, God's warder with white hairs ; 
And still his feast, that siWer star of March, 
When snows afflict the hill and frost the moor, 
With temperate beams gladdens the Ternal church." 

These lines are the only ones in this paper which have a right to 
be enclosed within what are called, not quite accurately, inyerted 
commas. The other flowers are gathered now for the first time. For 
instance, Miss Katharine Tynan — whose muse, we perceive, with 
pleasure, and without jealousy, is acceptable to The Qraphie and Timley 
— ^has sent us for St. Joseph's altar a tribute which (for the reason 
another poet has explained for us) she calls ''A March Sonnet." 

O thou dear Saint, who bearest in thj hand 

A silyer-shining lily ! now thy praise 

Is sung by those who Io?e thee, for the days 
Of windy March are in the wakening land. 
BeloTed of Mary ! now I see thee stand 

Beside the Crib with wondering raptured gaze, 

Or tending the Ohild Obrist through toilsome ways 
O'er the far-stretching lonely desert sand. 

BeloTed of Jesus \ would my words were meet 

To reach thee in the sunshine of His face 
And bloom as pale March flowers about thy feet — 

To rise and greet thee in thy heayenly place, 
In shape of yiolets odorous and sweet 

And with the late-born primroses' fair grace. 

As space is growing scarce, we shaU separate this sweet sonnet 
from the next poem by no more prose than suffices to say that we owe 
the latter toj Sister Maiy Stanislaus, and that it might take as its 
distinetiTe name, •• St. Joseph of Sion." r^ ^^^T^ 

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172 The Foster ^Father's Anthology. 

St. Joseph \ h« from whom is named 

All earth's paternity, 
While yet He dwelt amongst us, claimed 

A. father's care from thee ; 
And she. whom " David's mighty tower" 

And " Christian's Help " we call 
Leaned on thy strength in danger's hour, 

And trusted thee for all. 

He who upholds the great round earth, 

And speeds the starry train, 
Who gives the little birds their birth, 

And feeds the flowers with rain ; 
Who shines in sun. bedews in shower, 

To fructify earth's soil. 
Now seems a child bereft of power. 

Dependent on ihy toil. 

See o'er the desert swift they go, 

To Egypt far away, 
St. Joseph's prudence wills it so, 

St. Joseph leads the way ; 
And when once more they homeward wend. 

Not theirs again the choice : 
God'» secret guidance they attend. 

And Joseph is God's voice. 

In Naxareth, home of peace and prayer, 

St. Joseph still holds sway, 
He bears the weight of toil and case, 

yA«y love and they obey. 
Does any doubt perplexing rise? 

St. Joseph's voice will guide. 
In every need love trusting cries 

" St. Joseph will provide !" 

O Joseph! we who in degree 

Would tread the path they trod. 
And make our earthly dwelling be 

Like that dear home of God, 
Entreat thee dwell among us too, 

To aid, provide, defend, 
To give us good in season due 

As father and as friend ! 

And, oh I by all thy peaceful years, 

By all the dangers run, 
By all the joys, by all the fears, 

For Mary and her Son ; 
Oh ! by thy peaceful failing breathy 

Jesus and Mary nigh, 
Be with us, Joseph, at our death. 

And help us all to die. 

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The Foster-Father's Anthology. 1 73 

From the banks of the Lee St. Joseph has received two tributes in 
verse, the offering, however, of one heart. Miss Helena Oallanan 
addresses to the amiable patriarch a sonnet on the eve of Holy Com- 
munion:—* 

Ssint Joseph, by the Borrow and the lore 

80 deep, 10 wftrm, which, when the infant cry 

Of Jefui mingled first with choirs on high 
Thy tender sainted heart did thrill and more, 
Sedng thy cherished One, thy Spotless Dore, 

Heaven's lily fair, our earth-stained race among, 

All homelcM with her Babe desired so long. 
If such dear memories reach thine ear aboTc, 
Belored of God ! plead for us at His throne, 

That we, our souls made whole and strong. 

At mom may sing a glad triumphant song 
When in His sacrament He seeks His own, 
That we may meet and greet ffim as we ought. 
Our LoTC who giyeth more than loTe e'er sought 

Our contributor has neglected two very little exigencies of the 
strictest sonnet-form, which have been duly observed by her rival 
sonneteer in a previous page. But no fault can be found with the 
rhyme or reason of her second poem in a more popular metre, which 
is headed simply, " To St Joseph :"-— 

Bright hidden pearl, more loTed and known 
Than all saye Mary round God's throne. 
The days hare dim and distant grown 

Since first we knew St. Joseph ; 
Lore in our souls was warm and young, 
Praise on our lips like incense hung 
As with our childish hearts we sung, 

*' All haU to thee, St Joseph !" 

But now that sin has dimmed the ray 
Of happy childhood's smiling day, 
StiU may we our poor tribute pay 

Of loTe to thee, St Joseph. 
Still be thy kind protection near. 
Still to our pleading lend an ear. 
Keep us in paths of holy fear 

Where thou hast walked, St. Joseph. 

Guardian of Jesus, sheltering tree. 
Glad toiler for the blessed three, 
Our Mother's spouse, ah, haye not we 

Dear claims on thee, St Joseph F 
Around that tender memory clings 
The perfume of such heaTenly things; 
Thy name is like the whisperings 

Of sweetest peace, St Joseph. 



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1 74 Meeting and Parting. 

Our Lord hath fayoured ihee with power] 
To guard on earth His richest dower, 
Be our strong shield in danger^s hour 

And guard us, blest St Joseph ! 
Be nnto us a father mild 
Help us to lore the Holy Child, 
Companion of the Undefiled I 

Pray for us, pure St. Joseph. 

Through trackless wastes of desert sand 
Thy weary feet sought Egypt's land — 
Teach us to hear God*s least command 

And bless His will, St. Joseph. 
Journeying far in winter wild. 
From peaceful Nazareth exiled. 
Shielding the Mother and the Child, 

From sinful men, St. Joseph. 

Oh ! by the sorrow thou didst feel, 
Beholding griefs thou couldst not heal, 
Help us, when we to thee appeal. 
To bear our cross, St. Joseph. 
Patient, resigned to kiss the rod, 
Treading the way our fathers trod. 
The way that leads to home and Gbd, 
And Mary, and St Joseph. 
But here we must stay our hand, for there is not room for anymore 
of St. Joseph's Flowers during his own bleak month of March. After 
this gentle winter, shall his month be as bleak as ever, taking harsh 
vengeance for the unwonted mildness of February ? Perhaps, when 
his month is over, we shall return to the theme; for our store of un- 
published verse, written in his honour, is not yet nearly exhausted. 



MEETING AND PAETING. 

LIKE travellers in some distant land, 
We only meet to part ; 
Hand cannot long be clasped in hand, 
Nor heart conmiune with heart. 

But when we touch our native shore, 

And friend agaiA meets friend, 
That union is for evermore, 

Thut joy shall never end. 

And thus although we meet to part, 

We part to meet again ; 
Earth's fleeting joys might win our heart, 

If mixed with less of pain. 

D. ij. 

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( 175 ) 



EBISH WOOL AND WOOLLENS. 

BY A DIS0UB8IVE OONTBIBUTOB. 



FOUB or five years ago, having oooasion to open a history of Florence 
in seaarch of some information relating to the trade guilds of that 
famous seat of liberty and commerce^ I came upon an interesting 
account of the style of living prevalent among the citizena of Firenze 
la Betla, in the fourteenth century of our era. Their dress, their dwell- 
ings, their entertainments were minutely described; and the prices 
of sundry articles of daily'consumption and various materials for cloth- 
ing and house furnishing were likewise quoted. Among entries of 
manufactured goods imported by the m^xihants of the republic, my 
eye caught the words, '^ white Irish serge, five and fivepenoe farthing 
per ell." 

Can it be possible, thought I, that any product of Irish industry 
found for itself a demand in the luxurious Italy of five hundred years 
ago! 

Forthwith, I looked through all the books I could lay my hand on 
which seemed likely to furnish information concerning the manu« 
&oture and export of Irish serge in days gone by. Not finding what 
I sought in my calf -bound authorities that talk in type, I addressed 
myself to a walking enqydopsedia of my acquaintance, a gentleman of 
prodigious memory, whose knowledge of Irish affairs — historical, an- 
tiquarian, political and domestic — seems altogether inexhaustible, and 
whose reservoir of archaic lore overflows in a torrent of living speech 
in answer to any demand made by an intelligent querist, be he adver- 
sary or ally. In a marvellously short time I obtained all the inf orma* 
tion I could have hoped for anent the woollen exports of medisdval 
Ireland, and furthermore became enriched with a miscellany of viva 
voce notes on Irish trade in general and the Italian poets of the age of 
Dante in particular ; the illustrious Earl of Oharlemont and the flocks 
and herds of and^it Erin ; the patriots of '82, and the historians who 
hve and make aUe; the mistakes and misdeeds of which this coimtry 
has been the victim from aj>. 1169 even to the hour when the query 
about Irish serge was propounded by the present writer. 

However, the ascertained points most germane to the matter are 
the following : namely, that Fazio degli Uberti, a celebrated Italian 
poet, who towards the middle of the fourteenth century wrote a de- 
scription, in Una ritna, of the countries he explored in the course of 
his travels through the world, relates in his poem, entitled *' Ditta 
Mttodi," how, having seen England, he passed into Ireland : a countrv 
Vol. X. No. 106. April 1882. Digitized by GftOgle 



176 Irish Wool and Woollens. 

worthy ofrenowrif as lie says, /or the heautifid serges she sends us; that, in 
the Dizionario della Crusca under the heading of " Saia " (serge), an 
example is given of the use of the term *' saia d'Irlanda " from an old 
ledger, in which is charged '^ a piece of Irish serge to make a dress 
for Andrea's wife ;" and that, the patriotic Lord Charlemont haying, 
during his lengthened sojourn in Italy, come across a copy of Fazio's 
extremely rare work, transcribed the interesting passage above aUuded 
to, and subsequently brought it under the notice of the recently founded 
Boyal Irish Academy, as a remarkable evidence of the extent of Irish 
commerce and the success of Irish manufactures at a remote period of 
our history. 

From that day forward whenever, in the course of desultory 
rambles over the highways and byways of Irish history, I came on any 
reference to Irish wool or Irish cloth, forthwith I madef a note thereon, 
without any more definite purpose, however, th«ui to store up, against 
some possible eventuality in the future, facts which if not seized on the 
moment might elude research in the hour of need. 

Only the other day, when inquiring for a certain statistical treatise 
in a library stocked with works on arts and manufactures, I learnt by 
chance that a reader, presumably a gentleman of the press, had just 
been asking whether some book on the Irish woollen trade could not 
there and then be laid before him, but had received for answer that 
no such work was procurable, although the collection numbered several 
volumes on the cognate subject of the linen trade. I could not but 
think that, although no special work on Irish woollens might be named 
by the aid of which an article could be got up in hot haste for a morn- 
ing paper, there nevertheless exists both in public and private libraries 
ample material for an essay on that highly important subject, if one 
had only time and patience to run through histories, pamphlets, statute 
books, travels, and memoirs; set in order the gathered notes; and re- 
duce th mass of information to a readable form. 

The Irish wool trade has a history far from deficient in variety and 
incident. It was dealt]with, in a fair spirit generally, by English legis- 
lation from an early period of the Anglo-Norman occupancy to the 
reign of William and Mary. But from 1 699 to 1779 it was proscribed 
by statutes as inimical to social happiness and public morals, as was 
the penal code directed against the religion of the majority of the popu- 
lation. Possibly, the laws that annihilated the wool trade wrought 
more destruction than the legislation that aimed at stamping out the 
Catholic faith; for the trade Acts snatched bread from the mouth, 
filched hope from the heart, and wrenched power from the hands of 
the industrial sections of the community. 

But though the trade was sentenced to destruction, the spirit 
evoked by the deed was not set at rest for generations. Irish wool 
assumed an importance seldom enjoyed by a staple of manufacture. 

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Irish Wool and Woollens. 177 

KiBt it was a party ciy, fierce and minatory ; and then it swelled to a 
national outcry which artillery could not silence, English pa iliaments 
were convulsed by it, and Irish parliaments were disgraced or immor- 
talised according as they sacrificed or set free the wool. The question 
wove itself into the chequered web, one hundred years long, of Irish 
history. This it was that rallied the Volunteers. The air they 
marched to had words set to it with a refrain ringing of the wool ; and 
Napper Tandy acted under the same inspiration when he suspended 
from the necks of the Volunteer guns labels inscribed with the words, 
Ftm Trade or Speedy Ewolutum I If not dyed red as scarlet on ensan- 
guined fields, the wool had at any rate a tinge of romance imparted to 
it by the adventures connected with its contraband transport to foreign 
countries, and its association with the flight of the Wild Geese and 
the escape of hunted priests under favour of the smuggler's 8€dl. 
Popular songs kept alive the pathos and the pain of the story. In the 
winter evenings beside the hearth, and on summer nights beneath the 
moon, the peasants sang to strains of native music, wild and plaintive, 
the lament of the hapless maiden ruthlessly robbed of the 8umn 
BuMe^ the — " Yellow Blanket " — ^which cloaked in allegory the legend 
of the ruined trade.* Literature, too, had a thread of wool run through 
its pages. An essay of inconsiderable length, but a masterpiece of 
the English tongue, thrown off in obedience to a generous impulse to 
retrieve the fortunes of the injured wool, received the distinction of 
being branded by a grand jury as a scandalous, seditious, and factious 
pamphlet. A small volume dictated in a singularly calm and reason- 
ing spirit, as would be thought in our days, but discoursing plainly of 
the wool, earned a yet severer penalty and was publicly burned by 
the hands of the common hangman. And these pieces of '* dangerous " 
and ill-treated literature were not the production of men undistin- 
guiahed by their character, capacity, and position, but were the work 
respectively of Jonathan Swift, Dean of St. Patrick's, and John Hely 
Hutchinson, Provost of Trinity College. 

It is not my intention, I need hardly observe, to endeavour to write 
an exhaustive paper on Irish wool and woollens, though I fancy 
I can discern the Hnes on which such an essay might nm, and very 
much wish that some one would do the industrial cause so good a 
service. £ut as at this moment the subject of home products and 
manufactures occupies a good deal of attention, the wool as usual 
coming to the front, I think it just possible that readers of the Ibish 
MoHTHLT may not be unwiUing to refresh their memory of past read- 

* The air of Suisin Buidhe will be found in the Taluable and enlarged edition of 
Banting's *< Ancient Music of Ireland/' published in 1840. "Very old; author and 
date unknown,** is the note given in the margin by the compiler of the work. There 
are persons still linng who remember in their childhood hearing the country people 
anging with extraordinary feeling the lament set to this sweet strain. 



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1*78 Irish Wool and Woollens. 

ings, and to lend me their attention wMle I run through some rough 
notes and open at marked passages a score or so of yolumes lying 
conyeniently at hand. 

In the day when Lord Gharlemont wrote his paper on the antiquity 
of the wollen manufacture in Ireland,* it was thought a great deal to 
dte, in support of the thesis, records of the date of Edward HI., bear- 
ing evidence to the high repute, at home and abroad, of Irish friezes, 
serges, and stuffs in that monarch's reign. Further inquiry led to tho 
conclusion that woollen garments were in use among the natives many 
centuries before the English landed on these shores. Not, however, 
until our own day were proofs positive forthcoming of old Erin's pos* 
session of a home manufacture of cloths of great value and beauty, as 
well as of fabrics of coarser style. Within the last forty years tiio 
labours of our antiquaries, the publications of our arohsBological socie- 
ties, and, above all, the deciphering of the ancient laws of Ireland, 
have revealed as existing in the past a state of things hitherto unima- 
gined, and thrown a strong light on the social and domestic Hf e of the 
primitive, but by no means barbarous, inhabitants of the land of tho 
Gael. 

References to the teasing, carding, combing, and other processes 
by which the wool was prepared, and to the spinning, weaving, nap- 
ing, and dyeing of the doth, occur in the BrehonLaws. The woollen 
manufacture in all its branches was carried on by the women of the 
tribes ; and these laws lay down very precisely the divisions of the 
raw material and of the doth indifferent stages of its manufacture which 
a woman should be entitled to take with her in case of separation from 
her husband, the proportions being adjusted evidentiy by an estimate 
of the amount of labour expended by the wife on the wool or on the 
fabric. Equally with the fleeces, the dye stuffs were of home growth, 
and great attention was devoted to the procuring of pure and beautiful 
colours, in a variety of shades. A fine blue was much admired, green 
was a favourite colour, and a plant, now unknown, was grown in 
ridges for dyeing doth a " splendid crimson red/* Party coloured, 
striped, and spotted doths were also esteemed. Industry and art en- 
abled tiie spinning and weaving women not only to keep up the stock 
of material required for the ordinary clothing of the tribe, but also to 
provide the splendid manties in which the kings and chiefs figure so 
conspicuously in song and story. These manties were considered 
princely presents, when offered by one great man to another ; and the 
provindfd kings, valuing them as so much treasure, took them in form 
of tribute from their subordinate chiefs. In fact, as an artide of 
revenue, manufactured doth appears to have ranked next to live stock. 
In the " Book of Eights " wherein " the revenues of the prindpalities 
and the laws of the rights of the provindal kingdoms and of the tri- 

♦ " TransactionB of the Royal Iriah Academy (1787).*' , 

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Irish Wool and Woollens. I79 

bates and renta giyen to them and by them '' are preoisely stated, we 
find doth and cattle set down together. Thus, the King of Cashel is 
entitled to receive from one of his tributaries 1,000 doaks and 1,000 
milch cows ; while from others, together with hogs or cattle, he exacts 
doaks with white borders, or napped doaks trimmed with purplei or 
mantles all variegated. Oonnaught is not behind hand in the quantity 
and quality of the doth produced by her petty states. One tributary is 
taxed to the amount of thrice fifty superb doaks, and others must find 
royal doaks, or doaks of strength, or speckled cloaks, or purple doaks of 
fine brilliance. Dye stufFs were likewise taken in tribute. Ancient 
legends, poems, and lives of saints also abound in references to the manu- 
facture and use of woollen garments in Ireland, and to the importance 
assigned to the princdy mantle. For example, in the TViifi B6 Ch»n 
mgkns^ an epic poem of considerable antiquity, a description occurs of 
the personal appearance and dress of the Ulster chiefs as they arrive 
with their hosts at the camp of Connor. A comdy diampion, with 
deep red yellow bushy hair, and sparkling blue laughing eyes, ap- 
pears on the scene with a red and white doak fluttering around 
him fastened at the breast with a golden brooch; while another 
wanior, dark visaged and black haired, proudly advances leading on 
his company and wearing a red shagg doak with a silver fastening. 
A white-hooded doak with a flashing red border, and many other 
varities of the ample and splendid garment, are also described. Other 
aodent MSB. are also rich in word pictures of this kind. The ladies' 
flowing mantles are of course not left out of the tableau. For instance, 
the poet does not forget to record that the heroine of a story appeared 
in all the splendour of '' a lustrous crimson doak of dazzling sheen."* 
For centuries succeeding the heroic period, Irish kings and 
warriors continued to display in court and camp these much -prized 
mantles. Sometimes, too, the splendid garments strewed the fidd 
when their owners lost a battle. Thus, it is recorded that among the 
ipoils left by the sons of Brian Boe, when they fled from Mortogh, in 
1S18, were " shining scarlet doaks." Military mantles of a style 
better suited to a rough campaign were adopted on occasions by 
soldiers equipped for hard service. Mr. Halliday in a posthu- 
mous work,t notes from the Annals of Ireland that in a.d. 988, a 
diosen army of 1,000 men marched from Aileach prepared for a 
winter campaign by sheep-skin mantles provided for them by Muir- 
ehedaehi who thus gained the name of Muirchedadi of the leather 
mantles. 

• COuiTj : " Leeturet on the Manners and Customs of tbe Ancient Irish," (1878). 
" Manuscript Materials of Andent Irish History:" by the same author (1861). The 
"Bookof Bight8»" edited by Dr. O'DonoTan, and published by the Celtic Society 
(1847). 

t *'The Scandinavian Kingdom of Dublin." Edited, with some Notice of the 
Author's life, by J. P. Prendergast (1882). r^ ^ ^ ^ T ^ 

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i8o Irish Wool and Woollens. 

While the upper ranks in Ireland prided themselyes throughout 
the middle ages on the fine texture, rare fringes, costly trimmingB, 
and elegant clasps of their mantles, and, moreover, indulged in a 
profusion of linen, the humbler classes of the population were habited 
in a garb almost entirely composed of woollen material, heavy or 
light in substance according to necessity. A thin stufE answered for 
shirting or vest; a thicker composed the tunic and the trwMe or 
trowsers ; and of a heavy rug or frieze was fashioned the doak which 
was as indispensable an article of attire to the peasant as to the chief. 
The women had longer mantles than the men, and wore them over a 
kirtle or gown which reached to the ankle.* A short cloak or cape 
having a conical hood terminating in a tassel, was much worn by the 
men and went by the name of Cochdl, hence the English eowlf almost 
universally used for a hooded doak or cape. '' In the 8th century " 
observes Dr. W. K. Sullivan in his introductory volume to 
0*Curry's ''Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish," ''the 
Cochalf in the latinised form of Cocetda was considered in Wales and 
other countries as a characteristic of Irish dress, and the coarse long* 
napped woollen doth of which it was made continued to be an im- 
portant export of Ireland up to, at least, the middle of the 14th 
century." The learned author adds that the hooded doak, until lately 
so common in this country, and still much worn by women in the 
South and West of Ireland, may be regarded as a modified descendant 
of the andent Cochal; and that the frieze still corresponds to the 
description of the ancient materiaL 

Not very long after the Anglo-Norman adventurers had made good 
their footing in the island, the governors of the Pale became alarmed 
at discovering in the new settlers a dangerous tendency to adopt the 
Irish style of dress. So objectionable did this fancy to appear in 
habit like the Irish seem to the maintainers of English rule, that 
active measures were taken to retain liege subjects in their proper 
apparel, and induce the native chiefs to favour foreign fashions. 
John, King of England and Lord of Ireland, who had had fair oppor- 
tunies of becoming acquainted with the state of affairs in the latter 
kingdom, adopted means, which it must be acknowledged were not 
unprincdy, of giving a desirable turn to the fashion of the day in 
dothes. Soon after he ascended the throne of his father, he addressed 
an order, as we read, to the Archbishop of Dublin, directing him to 
buy such a quantity of scarlets as he should judge sufiident to make 
robes (after the English mode it is conjectured) to be presented to the 
kings of Ireland, and others of the king's liege men natives of the 
kingdom. 

Whether these personages wore with a good grace the " scarlets,** 

* J. C. Walker : "Historical Bssaj on the DroM, Armour, and Weapons of the 
Irish" (1788). ^ , 

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Irish Wool and Woollens. i8i 

oat after the pattern that seemed good to King Jolin, histoiy does 
not record ; but there is abundant evidence to show that they trans- 
mitted no taste for novelty to their descendants, who stoutly adhered 
to ancestral and suspicious modes. ''The barbaric splendour and 
quaintness of the Irish chiefs seems to have caught the fancy of the 
English settlers in the reign of Edward III., as we find the use of the 
Iiii^ dress prohibited to them in the celebrated Statute of Kilkenny, 
passed during the administration of Edward's son, the Duke of 
Clarence. One clause in this Act ordains that the English in Ireland 
shall conform in garb and in the cut of their hair to the fashion of 
their countiymen in England: whosoever afEected that of the Irish 
should be treated as an Irishman, which obviously meant ill-treated."* 

This war of the Plantagenets was made not on Irish manufactures, 
be it noted, but on Irish tailoring. The red and white cloths of the 
country were on sale in England in the thirteenth century, and pieces 
of this description are enumerated as comprised in the effects of King 
John himself .f Amongst the different articles of dress stolen at Win- 
chester, by Walter Bloweberme and Hamon le Stare, and which after- 
wards occasioned the celebrated duel between those gentlemen, about 
the close of this reign, was a tunic of Irish cloth.J Edward HI., who 
did more to encourage trade in England than any of his predecessors 
on the throne, and who made Ireland an equal participator in the ad- 
vantages offered by his protection, showed particular favour to Irish 
frieze, for a statute passed in the twenty-eighth year of his reign 
exempts it from duty under the description of Bra^u appellee fr%%eware 
queux sotU/aitz en Irland. 

However, even the Statute of Kilkenny, though renewed in every 
parliament till the year 1452, had little permanent effect in reforming 
the manners of the liege men of the Pale, who continued to find an ir- 
resistible attraction in the society of their neighbours across the 
border ; and while delighting in the music, the sports, the story-telling 
by the hearth, and the pleasant freedom of the Irishry, shaped their 
beards, and arranged their hair, and cut their cloth after the fashion 
of the native Gael. Wrapped in their Irish mantles these degenerate 
English refused to change their garments of predilection or conform 
in such matters to the wishes of any king of England or any lord 
deputy of Ireland. An Act passed in the reign of Henry YI. asserts 
that now there is no diversity in array betwixt the English marchours 
and the Irish enemies {Irrey8 enemis to nostre seigneur le roy)y and pro- 
ceeds to correct this evil. 

In the reign of Edward lY. another advance was made, and not 

• Planch^ : «* Cyclopaedia of Costume." 

t Gilbert: ** Historical and Municipal Documents of Ireland" (English Rolls, 
A.D. 1172— 1320). Prrface. 

X Quoted from '< Bjmer's Foedera " by Lord Charlemonty and oth^n. 

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1 82 Irish Wool and Woollens. 

only fhe English of the Pale but the Irish dwelling in certain counties 
were commanded to go apparelled like Englishmen.* And still it 
seems to have been all in vain, for in the reign of Henry VJLl. the very 
lords of Ireland were wont to attend Parliament in the yesture of 
Irishmen. An Act was then passed ordering these personages to ap- 
pear in the same parliament robes as those of England, under the 
penalty of a hundred shillings — a round sum in those days to levy off 
a lord. 

Oalway, a great commercial port, and a stanch English town in the 
main, did, nevertheless, give cause for displeasure, inasmuch as that 
the dothes of its inhabitants were not found of a piece with their prin- 
ciples. In an Ordinance " gy vyn at our manor of Greenwych, the 
28th day of April, in the 28th year of our reign " Henry VIII. (the 
first English prince, by the way, who assumed the style and title of 
King of Ireland) among other directions for the government of the 
town of Oalway, enjoined, " that no man nor man child do wear no 
mantles in the streets, but cloaks or gowns, coats, doublets, and hose 
shapen after the English fashion, but made of the country doth or 
any other doth it may please them to buy."t 

Other sumptuary regulations of the same reign had a more general 
application than the Ordinance issued by the king to his well-beloved 
lieges of Oalway. In one of these Acts, it is enjoined that no loyal 
woman should wear any kirtle or coat tucked up or embroidered with 
silk, or laid with uske after the Irish fashion ; and that none should 
wear mantle, coat or hood, of the said pattern.]: 

Waterford, also a prosperous and loyal town in those days, does 
not appear, from anything that I know, to have given the Government 
serious trouble on the subject of costume, although the manufacture 
of woollen cloths flourished on the banks of the Suir. Stanihurst, 
whose account of Ireland is published in HoUinshed's " Ghronides," 
speaking of Waterford, says, '' as they distiU the best aqua VxUb, bo 
they spin the choicest rug in Ireland;" and he gives a curious instance 
of the value of this peculiar doth in cold weather and its dose resem- 
blance to a bear skin. '^Afriendof mine,'* says the historian, ''beings 

* " In order to counteract the efforts made hy the Englieh Goyemment to destroy 
their ancient manners, the Irish exerted all their obstinacy to preserre them. They 
showed Tiolent arersion to the politeness and refined manners of the Anglo-Normans ; 
' making no account,' says the historian, Froissart, ' of any amusements and polite be- 
hayiour, nor wishing to acquire any knowledge of good breeding, but to remain in 
their pristine rudeness.' This rudeness was but seeming : for the Irish knew how to 
liye with foreigners, and to make themselyes agreeable to them, especially if they were 
enemies of the English." — Augustin Thierry : *' History of the Conquest of England by 
the Normans." Condution, section iy. 

t The king's Ordinance is giyen in Hardiman's '* HistoTy of Oalway." 
X See reference to this Act in Dr. Sigerson's *' History of the Land Tenures and 
Land Classes of Ireland." Chapter yi. 

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Irish Wool and Woollens. 183 

of late demnrant in London, and the weather by reason of a hoare 
frost being somewhat nipping, repaired to Paris Qarden, dad in one 
of these Waterford ruge. The mastiffs had no sooner espied him, but 
deeming he had been a, beare, would fain have baited him : and were 
it not that the dogs were partly muzzled and partly chained, he doubted 
not that he should haye been well tug'd in this Irish rug, whereupon 
he solemnly vowed never to see bear-baiting in any such weed."* 

This is not the last we hear of the Irish rug or the Irish mantle. 
Spenser devotes some space — to use a phrase not known to the author 
of the '' Faerie Queen " — to a description of the obnoxious garment ; 
and Shakespeare alludes in a very marked way to the rug and 
the kernes who wore it. In fact, the advance of learning brought 
into action another engine for attacking a style of dress dis- 
approved of by the party that had the press on its side. The mantle 
was stigmatized ; arguments in favour of its suppression were ad- 
vanced ; " the Iiyshe men, our naturall enemyes," had an objection- 
able way of concealing things, weapons and the like, under their 
mantle, ''fit doakfor a thief ;" they had a custom of wrapping the 
folds hastily about the left arm when attacked, " which serves them 
instead of a target ;"t in a foray they would draw the hood or 
the doak itself over their head, making it do service as a helmet : hence 
the epithet '' rug-headed " as applied to the Irish \X nay more, this 
barbarous head-gear was only a too effectual mask when the worst 
viUainy was in hand : " hooded men " meant «iMMMMnw«, 

The mantle was written down, in a word, and became more than 
ever an object of peculiar abhorrence to the English. To strip the 
chiefs of their handsome mantles and the people of their comfortable, 
water-tight, much-prized frieze doaks would have been looked on as 
a good stroke of statesmanship^and equal to a general disarmament of 
the common enemy. 

But, though new means were adopted to bring the native costume 
into discredit, the old were not relinquished. It is amusing to read 
how Sir John Ferrot, Queen Elizabeth's trusty Lord Deputy, took a 
leaf out of Eling John's book, and, having intimated that members 
habited in the Irish mantle and trouse should not be allowed to attend 
the parliament he convoked in 1586, he proceeded to use the gentler 

• Parit Gbrden, it will be remembered, was a place of public amuiement in LoadoD, 
where the citiiens enjoyed the barbaroui pastime of bear-baiting. The paeaage from 
Stanihurat will be found in the work of Planeh6 already quoted. 

t In the '* Bncjdopndta of Ooetume " it is obserred that this is a oonmion practice 
in Spain at the present day. When looking through Dora's " Spain *' lately, I was 
myself struck with the resemblance of the peasant's cloak, so frequently pictured in 
the book, with the Irish mantle, heaTy, ample, and fringed as described in historians' 
and poets' Tiews of Ireland. 

X "We must supplant those rough rug-headed keams."— Kiohard IL, act ii. 



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1 84 Irish Wool and Woollens. 

arts of persuasion, and '' bestowed both gownes and doakes of velyet 
and satten " on some of the coimtTy gentlemen. '' And yet," adds the 
historian, '' the Irish chiefs thought not themselves so richlj, or, at 
least, so contented] J attired in their new costume as in their mantles 
and other country habits."* 

Strange, indeed, would it have been, under these circumstances, if 
the Government of her majesty's successor, " the Solomon of the age," 
did not devote some attention to the study of this philosophy of clothes. 
Anyhow, the importance of the question was not ignored. Beform 
was once more proclaimed throughout the length and breadth of the 
island. " The circuits of the judges were not now confined within the 
narrow limits of the Pale, but extended through the whole kingdom, 
and the Lord Deputy Chichester, in 1615, directed that all sheriffs, 
justices of peace, jurors, and other officers of justice, and freeholders, 
should attend all Sessions and Sitting Terms, wearing English attire 
and apparel, and that all who appeared at them in mantles, or robes, 
or wearing glibbs, should be punished by fine and imprisonment."! 

Stranger still would it have been, considering all the force and 
sapience expended in the attempt to reduce the Irish to a " conformities 
concordance, and f amiliaritie in language, tongue, in manners, order, 
and apparel with them that he civil people,^* if some persons in high 
office had not been able to persuade themselves that good government 
^lad triumphed at last, and the dawn of civilisation appeared. Accord- 
ingly, we find Sir John Davis, of happy memory, rejoicing in the 
successful carrying out of the late enactments. '' These civil assemblies 
at Assizes and Sessions," writes his Majesties Attumey Generall of 
Ireland, ** have reclaymed the Irish from their wildness, caused them 
to cut off their glibs and long haire ; to convert their mantles into 
cloaks ; to conform themselves to the manner of England in all their 
behaviour and outward forms." Furthermore, Sir John was led on to 
''conceive an hope, that the next generation will, in tongue, and 
heart, and every way else, become Engli$h: so as there wiU be no 
difference or distinction, but the Irish Sea betwixt us."} 

This interesting example of official complacency and the art of 
prophesying to us pleasant things, would furnish a choice heading to a 

* See an intereeting note, in which this bit of history is giyen and a description of 
the trouse appended, in Archdeacon O'Borke's ** History of BallTsadare." Chapter iii. 

f See in .Fitzgperald's "Historj of the countj and city of Limerick," toLi., a 
preliminary riew of the progress of Cirilisation, in which a great deal of Walker's in- 
fonnation on Irish dress is confessedly embodied. The glibbes, so often mentioned 
with opprobrium, meant the Irish mode of wearing the hair in long locks hanging 
behind on the neck, and falling oyer the forehead in a manner resembling the " fringes" 
which ladies wear at the present day. In Ware's " Antiquities '* those who are 
curious in the matter wiU find a woodcut representing an Irishman with the long glibbes 
and dependent mustache so fondly cherished by the natives. 

} ** A DiscoTsrie of the SUte of Ireland," (1613). 



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Lent. 185 

chapter of the histozy of Ireland in the seventeenth century. Mean- 
while, the women of Ireland continued spinning, and weaving, and 
dyeing the wool, and cutting the clothes of the nation according to the 
pattern handed down by their ancestors ;* the naien, and men children 
went on displaying, on every convenient occasion, a very decided and 
most ''uncivil" preference for Irish versus English behaviour and 
costume ; and the Fates, deaf to the thunders of royal ordinances, and 
the sweet persuasion of Elizabethan English, never ceased weaving 
the thread of Ireland's destiny into a fabric of quite another hue and 
texture from that contemplated in the prevision of the inspired law 
officer of "the wisest fool in Christendom." 



LENT. 

COMES the quiet time of year — 
Now the gray road doth appear 
Which reluctant feet must tread 
'Midst the ashes of the dead. 

Gray and chill, yet safe and sure, 
Fringed with snowdrops pale and pure 
Underneath a sky that grieves 
O'er barren boughs and fallen leaves. 

Harsh and frozen is the earth, 
Distant simmier's flowers and mirth ; 
Gleams alone in thickets damp 
The daffodilly's yellow lamp. 

One by one the pilgrims go 
By the pathway, sad and slow ; 
Each one thinketh in his heart 
How he doth his daily part. 

* Sir William Petty, Surrejor-General of the kingdom of Ireland, speaking of the 
drcM of the Irish peasantry in his daj, says : *' Their clothing is far better than that 
of the French peasants, or the poor of most other countriei ; which adyantage they 
hftTS from their wool, whereof 12 sheep f umisheth a competency to one of theBe'fami- 
lies. Which wool and the cloth made of it doth cost these poor people no less^than 
£50,000 jwr ann, for the dying it, a trade exercised by the women of the country. " — 
"The Political Anatomy of Irebnd " (1672). r^ ^^^T^ 

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1 86 Lent. 



Sorroweth for the sin tliat kills, 
Moumeth o'er the will that wills 
Evil 'gainst the high and good 
Hero of the holy rood. 

Weepeth for a wandering world, 
Out of light to darkness hurled ; 
Fray h that all feet may come 
To the Everlasting Home. 

Museth on a brother's pain, 
Planneth for another's gain, 
Oiveth dole to sick and poor, 
Out of gieat or little store. 

Traineth self to stand aside, 
With denial satisfied; 
Smiling on another's bliss, 
Adding to his happiness. 

Thankful for an ampler share 
Than he knows of pain or care. 
Counting each a step of light 
I^eaching to a fairer height. 

Pilgrims we will travel there. 
Through the biting wintry air, 
On the narrow Lenten road. 
Leading o'er the hills to God. 

As we wend, it groweth sweet. 
And tinwearied are our feet 
When at last the bloomy spring 
Gomes to end our travailing. 

May we, each one, keep this tryst 
With the ever-blessed Christ, 
Who will in one fateful day 
Meet us on a lonelier way. 



E. M. 



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( i87 ) 



DEAD BROKE: 

A TALE OF THE WESTERN STATES. 

BT DILLOir O'BRISir. 
AUTUQE OV "nUJIK BLAXB," " WIDOW XBLTILLB*a BOABDZVO-HOUBV' fto. Ao. 

CHAPTEE VII. 

A WEDDING. 

The next znoTning Bobert was out in his garden early, and had a 
bouquet ready to hand Lucy when she was passing ; but she did not 
make her appearance, and he, disappointed, lingered out of doors until 
the hour for Flitters' visit had arrived. Punctual to the minute, the 
little man left his house, crossed over the street, and entered the 
garden. Seeing him do so, Bobert advanced, while all the members 
of the Flitters family in the house, intently watched the meeting, Mrs. 
Flitters having a tight hold of Master Flitters by the waist, to prevent 
a renewal of yesterday's accident. 

" Oh, look, Anna Maria," ezdaimed Mrs. Flitters, in her excite- 
ment giving short jerks to Flitters Jim., who, in his turn, commenced 
stiiking out frantically at his sister Polly's head, it being the nearest 
head to him; '' look, there is your pa standing before the young man, 
with his hat off, like a meniaL" 

It was true, in all cases of emergency. Flitters had to seek inspira- 
tion from the bald spot on the top of his head, and as he could not get 
at it through the crown of his hat, he had taken the latter off. Having 
passed his hand along its usual line of travel, he felt much more at 
his ease, and Bobert was at once prepossessed by the brown eyes, and 
innocent round face, turned up to his. 

** 1 believe I am addressing Mr. McGregor," said the little man. 

** Yes, sir," answered Kobert. 

** My name is Flitters," continued the little man, fumbling in his 
pocket for the card. ** I have called by the direct — ahem — I have 
called to see you." 

" Very kind of you, Mr. Flitters," said Bobert, putting out his 
hand ; " how do you do, sir ? We are near neighbours, I find, Mr. 
Flitters, and hope we shall be good ones. Pray come into the house," 
. and Bobert ushered his visitor into the parlour. " Be seated, sir," he 
continued ; *' you are in business here, I believe, Mr. Flitters ; I think 
I passed by your store yesterday." 

"Yes," replied Flitters; "family groceries, provisions, butter, 
lard ; — I deal in live feathers, too." 

** Indeed," said Bobert, bowing his head as if this was a very in- 
teresting piece of information to him. ^ , 

Vol. X.. Ko. 106. Digitized by LiOOglC 



1 88 Dead Broke. 

" He's a very nice young man," thought Mr. Flitters, " and not a 
bit upsettish." Then he delivered his wife's invitation to Bobert, to 
take tea with them the following evening. *' No one but ourselves, 
Mr, McGregor," he concluded. 

" I am sure I am very much obliged to you and Mrs. Flitters," 
said Eobert, '* and certainly will do myself the pleasure of calling and 
making the acquaintance of Mrs. Flitters ; but I think you must ex- 
cuse me for to-morrow evening." 

With a rapid gesture Mr. Flitters went behind his hand, and when 
the brown eyes were again visible, they were filled with sorrow and 
apprehension. ** Mrs. Flitters will be greatly disappointed," he said. 

" Oh, as you are so kind to say so," said Eobert, " why, I will not 
disappoint her ; I will go over. At what hour did you say ?" 

" Half -past six," answered his visitor, rising briskly, and bidding 
Bobert a cheerful good-morning, he hurried to his house to be delayed 
a quarter of an hour longer from business, in detailing to Mrs. Flitters 
the result of his visit, and answering some leading questions which 
suggested themselves to the mind of that very able woman. 

When Bobert McGregor rang the bell, the following day, at Mrs. 
Flitters', the door was opened by a servant maid, who showed him 
into the sitting-room, telling him at the same time that Mr. Flitters 
had not as yet returned from the store, but she would inform Mrs. 
Flitters of lus, Robert's, arrival. 

In the middle of the room was Master Flitters, endeavouring to 
build a house with blocks. The moment the door was shut, he stopped 
his work, and looking at Bobert, said, ** I know who you are." 

*^ Intelligent boy," said Bobert, who was too 'young to be an ad- 
mirer of precocious babyhood. '* Well, who am I, Solomon ?" 

" I aint Solomon, but I know who you are." 

*'WeU, who?" 

" You're the man that lives in the cottage, and you're going to 
marry Polly." 

Robert was still laughing at the answer, when the door opened, and 
there sailed into the room, like a proud frigate with three full-rigged 
schooners in her wake, Mrs. Flitters and the Misses Flitters. With 
a dignified air the lady of the house advanced and extended her hand 
to Robert, as she said, " Mr. McGregor, I am very happy to make 
your acquaintance ; very kind of you to come to us without any cere- 
mony ; Mr. Flitters will be here immediately. My daughters, Mr. 
McGregor,-- Anna Maria, Louisa Jane, and Polly." 

« My intended," thought Bobert, as he bowed to the young ladies]; 
'< well, she !s the prettiest of the lot" 

Presently Mr. Flitters came home, and shortly afterwards they all 
adjourned to supper, where Mra Flitters presided with great dignity, 
engrossing much of the conversation, while the young ladies smiled 

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Dead Broke. 189 

and exchanged glances, and Flitters strictly attended to what brought 
him to table. 

"You take sugar, Mr. M'Gregor?" asked the hostess. 

*' Sugar is rising," said Mr. Flitters, looking up from his plate. 

Mrs. Flitters turned one look upon him ; he laid his fork down ; the 
brown eyes became filled with an expressive plea for mercy, and then 
seemingly with fresh appetite, Mr. Flitters renewed his attack upon 
the yiands before him. 

" And how do you like the West, Mrs. Flitters ?" asked Robert. 

"Oh, pretty well, Mr. McGregor; it would not do to tell you, a 
Western gentlen^an, anything else ; but we miss the society of Fifth 
Avenue, Mr. McGregor; don't we, Anna Maria ?" 

" I should think so, ma," replied the young lady appealed to. 

*' I miss the Bowery, Mr. McGregor, I can tell you," said Mr. 
Flitters, quite sincerely. 

Mrs. Flitters gave him a glance, but her husband was at that 
moment engaged with a piece of beefsteak on his plate, and did not 
notice it, so the lady said in explanation : " Mr. Flitters kept a store in 
the Bowery, at one time, Mr. McGregor." 

"Yes, and a mighty small store at one time; ha, ha, ha," said 
Flitters, jocosely. 

There are some people that eating, like the moderate use of wine, 
exhilarates. Flitters was a full-blooded, healthy little man, with a 
fine appetite and healthy digestion, and the succulent beefsteak he 
was eating warmed him up, made him feel good, and careless of 
consequences ; but no sooner had that reckless laugh passed his lips, 
than a premonitory cough brought him sitting straight up in his 
chair ; Mrs. Flitters' gray eyes were fixed upon him ; Mrs. Flitters* 
Koman nose pointed at him. The beefsteak intoxication passed 
away, his hand sought the inspiring bald spot, then slowly passed 
down his face, and the brown eyes resignedly put in the plea of guilty 
on every count, immediately after which. Flitters commenced briskly 
to help himself and Flitters Jun., to large slices of pound-cake. 

By the time supper was over, Flitters Jun. had fallen into a profound 
sleep, and was thus disposed of for the rest of the evening, and Bobert 
and the young ladies retired to the drawingroom, where the two oldest 
Misses Flitters sang and played duets on the piano, Mrs. Flitters hav- 
ing whispered to Eobert to insist on their doing so — while Polly, her 
long black curls now and then brushing his hand, showed him her 
album, a cunning artifice by which she was enabled to take advantage 
of her sisters behind their backs : " just like Polly," said Louisa Jane, 
afterwards. Altogether, Kobert spent a very pleasant evening; he 
had never mixed in what is called society. Yet, accustomed to the 
quiet refinement of his own home, and to the ease of manner of an 
educated gentleman, like his father, he was not for a moment deceived 

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by tlie over-done fashionable dirs of Mrs. Flitters ; but neither was 
he inclined to be a very seyere critic, for he was flattered by the atten- 
tion he received, and consequently disposed to be pleased. 

When he rose to leave, Mr. Flitters, emerging from a comer where 
he had been enjoying a comfortable nap, proposed to walk across to 
the cottage with him. When they reached the gate, Eobert opened it 
€md asked Mr. Flitters to enter, but he would not, so they two stopped 
a few minutes leaning on the fence and chatting. Just as Flitters was 
about returning, he looked over at his house, and seeing the door 
shutj and judging that Mrs. Flitters was safely on the other side out 
of hearing, he pulled his business card out of his pocket, and pre- 
senting it to Bobert, said : *' Drop into the store, Mr. M'Oregor, and 
if you want anything in our line, we will be happy to supply you. 
Family groceries, provisions, lard, butter, soap, rope. Oood-nightt 
good-night.'' 

There is no positive record of Bobert McGregor dreaming of Folly 
FLLtters that night, but it is certain that it was Lucy Evans, his old 
schoolmate, he was thinking of when he awoke the next morning. 
He had not seen her now for two days. The flowers he had gathered 
for her were lying on his dressing-table faded, and Bobert , fixing his 
eyes upon them endeavoured to get himself into a poetic melancholy, 
by repeating, '' Faded flowers, faded hope." But whether it was that 
he could not find a line to correspond with this one, orthat intiying to 
get a word to rhyme with hope. Flitters' enumeration of family gro- 
ceries, soap, rope, &c., the night before occurred to him, or that his 
youthful spirit, overflowing with animal life, would not be tamed 
down, whatever the cause, he suddenly broke forth into a merry 
laugh, and tossing the bedclothes aside, jumped up and commenced 
to dress. 

'' It was very ridiculous of me," thought Bobert, as he hurriedly 
dressed, '' to suppose that Lucy would be coming round here to receive 
bouquets from my hand ; the little gipsy must have taken the lower 
street on her way to school. It is certidnly my business to call to see 
her ; I will be just in time to pull a few flowers, meet her before she 
leaves Mrs. Sims, and have a walk with her to the school-house. She 
is the only one I can have any pleasure in talking over the happy past 
with, the only one left that had any share in that past. What a queer 
matched pair Mr. Flitters and his wife are ! I like the little man, but 
he is terribly hectored, and the two oldest girls are the image of their 
mother. Certainly I am veiy much obli ged to that interesting child, who 
has such a capacity for pound-cake, for selecting Polly for me. Will 
there be anything strange in my calling on Lucy so early? Oh, no, 
we are old schoolmates. I suppose she has lots of admirers. Of 
course she has, for she is downright beautiful." 

Bobert was just in time to meet Lucy as she was leaving the 

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Dead Broke. 191 

house, and the blush and smile with which she greeted him well 
repaid him for his short walk. 

" I have brought you the flowers, Lucy, that you would not come 
for," he said. 

^^ I am very much obliged to you," she answered, taking them 
from his hand. " Oh, how beautiful ! why, Bobert, you have shown 
excellent taste in your selection." 

** Well, you know, Lucy, I have always displayed good taste, even 
at school." The emphasis with which this was said, and the look 
which accompanied it, brought another bright blush to the girPs face. 
And so, happy in the sunshine of the young day, and the sunshine of 
their young Hves, shining through the glamour of first love, they 
chatted and walked, side by side, until they reached the school-house, 
where they parted as on the former occasion. 

For the next two weeks or so, Eobert usually met Lucy in the 
morning, and walked with her to the school-house; and when vaca- 
tion came, they had many a stroll together to places in the neighbour- 
hood that were favourite resorts of Eobert and James Allen in their 
boyhood years. 

On these occasions, Bobert McGregor spoke frequently of his 
father and James Allen; and indeed the yoxmg lovers — ^for lovers they 
surely were—seemed in their words and thoughts, to be busy with 
the past rather than the present or future. 

This state of feeling in lovers may be termed the luxury of melan- 
choly — ^the Indian summer of love, with its soft, warm, hazy atmos* 
phere, through which a gentle happiness pulsates, and like the Indian 
summer of our northern dime, it is ever too beautiful and calm to 
last long. In position these two young people were singularly in- 
dependent of Mrs. Grundy. They had no one's wishes to consult, no 
particular or exclusive set to please or vex, and in means, Bobert was 
equally independent. In his daily intercourse with Lucy at this time 
he never broke out into passionate words of love^ nor had he asked 
her to be his wife. Bespect for his father's memory kept his lips 
sealed for the present, but he felt in his heart how truly he loved her, 
was conscious that his love was returned, and looked forward without 
doubt to the time when he should call her his wife. Under the guise 
of the best friends, they were they best of lovers. 

I have said that Bobert McOregor and Lucy Evans were singu- 
larly independent of Mrs. Orundy — a fact that was very aggravating to 
the old lady ; so she set about doing them as much harm as she could. 
They were not so far beyond her reach but that she could make 
them feel uncomfortable and unhappy for the time being. What 
mortal is ? 

Mrs. Flitters was the primary mover on the part of society. 
From the time of making Eobert McGregor's acquaintance^ she had 

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192 Dead Broke. 

been unremitting in what she termed '' delicate attention," and as 
Eobert really liked Mr. Flitters, he frequently called on the latter after 
business hours, to have a friendly chat or to bring him over to the 
cottage, where Mr. Flitters would surreptitiously enjoy a mild cigar, 
and then by rinsing his mouth with water, eating cloves, and taking 
other precautionary measures, endeavour to destroy all evidence of his 
dissipation before returning to the family domicile. 

Mrs. Flitters perceived from the first that of the girls Eobert 
evidently preferred Polly, and though, as a match-making mother, 
she would have wished to hand out her daughters in regular rotation, 
beginning with Anna Maria, to expectant young men with good 
prospects, still she made up her mind to submit without a murmur to 
circumstances, and to bestow Polly on Robert McGregor. Nor were 
there any objections to be apprehended on the part of Polly to this 
arrangement ; consequently, when Bobert called, she was left alone 
with him as much as possible. As possible, I say ; for the stupidity of 
Flitters did much to counteract the strategistic movements of that able 
woman, Mrs. Flitters : he was continuaUy appearing at the wrong 
time. His habit of going off with Eobert to spend the evening at the 
cottage showed a callous disregard to the interests of his family, 
which was most disheartening. On such occasions, Mrs. Flitters would 
remark to her daughters: "Of course, my dears, the young man would 
have spent the evening here, had not your father dragged him off.'^ 

The abject repentance of Flitters, when reproved for his conduct, 
and his lively promptness to commit the same offence at the first 
opportunity, were evidences going to show that permanent change of 
heart was not to be expected from him ; but despite Flitters play- 
ing the part of a Marplot, Polly and Eobert had plenty of oppor- 
tunity to become intimate friends. How pretty she used to look, when, 
at the suggestion of the parent bird, she fluttered across the street, 
and perching on the first rail of the first fence, begged of Eobert, in 
the garden, "just a few of those beautiful flowers." Those little, 
flying visits, made at first at the suggestion of her mother, were con- 
tinued by Polly from inclination, until the poor girl had almost given 
away her heart before she discovered that she had no return. And 
love, that blinds to all else, made her vision dear in this. The moment 
she began to love, she saw that Eobert did not He flirted with her, 
romped with her, played with her, but he did not love her. His very 
familiarity and self-possession in her presence, lus pleasant, indifferent 
manner at their parting or meeting, i^owed that he regarded her as a 
pleasing acquaintance, one whom he would likely come to esteem as 
a friend but only as a friend. More than this, scarcely had love 
dawned in her heart, than by intuition she surmised that Eoberl 
McGregor loved somebody else, and this surmise she confided, not 
without a few little sobs heroically kept under restraint, to her mother. 

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Dead Broke. 193 

This infoimation startled Mrs. Flitters on a tour of disoorerj. 
Bemembering the first morning she saw Robert in his garden speak- 
ing to a young lady, she started from that point, and had no difficulty 
in finding out who Lucy was, and the great intimacy that existed 
between herself and Bobert. Indeed, when she went seeking informa- 
tion on these points, such a fiood of light poured in from all the 
newsmongers' lanterns, that the only wonder was, she had not heard 
all about Lucy and Bobert long before. 

'' They were seen frequently walking together in all outlandish 
places, since school closed, and before that he walked with her to the 
school-house every morning since his return home." 

"Oh, such goings on, Mrs. EHtters," concluded another gossip, 
''I hope all will end well; but that Lucy Evans was always a bold, 
forward thing." 

Number three gossip, "Knew very well that if Dr. McGregor 
was alive he would not allow his son to be keeping company with the 

niece of a woman that took in washing when she lived in P ." 

And number four gossip, " Hoped at one time, my dear Mrs. Flitters, 
that Bobert MoOregor's becoming intimate with your respectable 
family, might lead to a match between him and one of your sweet 
girls. It would be such a suitable match in eveiy way." 

Whereupon the Boman-nosed matron, taken o£E her guard by the 
honeyed flatteiy of these words, revealed the secret of her maternal 
bosom, in regard to Polly and Bobert, to number four, and the latter 
rewarded this feminine confidence in a truly feminine way, by putting 
on her sun-bonnet the moment Mrs. Flitters disappeared round the 
eomer of the street, and hastening to Lucy Evans with an embelHshed 
and exhaustive report of what " she said," and " she said," until it 

appeared to poor Lucy that all the female tongues in F were 

suddenly let loose, and in full cry after a little orphan girl, that had 
never as much as hurt a fiy intentionally. 

Leaving Lucy in a satisf actoiy state of unhappiness, number four 
returned to the bosom of her family, with a complacent consciousness 
of having done her duty, and the next Sunday Mrs. Grundy went to 
dhuTch and sang the Doxology. 

The same day that Lucy had heard of the great interest that Mrs. 

flitters and other good ladies in P were taking in her welfare, 

Bobert called to bring her out to walk, and very soon perceived that 
something was the matter. In meeting him, her manner was restrained 
and confused, and, as he looked anxiously in her face, he detected 
signs of tears. 

^'Something has distressed you, Lucy," he said; ''tell me what 
it is, my Httle girl." 

^'I think I shall, Bobert," she answered, as the tears came swim* 
ning into her eyes, and her face crimsoned. ' ' You are my only friend 

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194 Dead Broke. 

here, and I will tell you, although it is hard, and I don't know how to 
do it. You won't misjudge me ?" 

" Will jou misjudge me, Lucy, by asking such a question ?" 

'' No," she answered, <' I will not;" and then she told him about 
the inquiries Mrs. Flitters had been making among her lady friends* 
and all the reports and insinuations which that able woman had 
set afloat. 

Lucy hurried oyer the recital, now and then catching her breath to 
preyent a sob, but when she came to speak of the happiness that Mrs. 
Flitters had intended for Sobert, by becoming his mother-in-law, 
Lucy stole a glance at her loyer, and a quizzical smile parted the lips 
that had been quiyering the moment before. 

And what did Robert say to all this ? Well, nothing in words, 
but, with a pleasant joyous laugh, that blew Mrs. Flitters and all the 

gossips of P clear o£E into space, he drew Lucy towards him in the 

ecstasy of first love revealed. " And now, Lucy," said Eobert, " be 
off and get your bonnet, and we will pay a visit to Mrs. Flitters, or, 
if you like it better, we will take a walk to Prince Charlie's tree." 

And beneath the broad-leafed branches of Prince Charlie's tree, on 
whose trunk the jackknives of the boys — Bobert McGhregor and James 
Allen— had cut Luc/s name when she was their little playmate at 
school, the youth and maiden sat, weaving in the sunlight of youth 
their bright woof of love, happily unconscious in this, the summer of 
their lives, of the winter whose tempests should dim its colours and 
test its strength. 

The delicious prattle of lovers is silly jargon to other ears, but it 
is necessary that I should give a portion of Lucy's and Bobert's con- 
versation, which took place during a lucid interval. 

'' Out of respect to the memory of my dear father," said Eobert, 
''I did not intend, Lucy, to ask you to be my wife for some time longer, 
but our friends have made it necessary to hasten our happiness. Your 
idea of paying a visit to your good aunt, who wishes you to do so, is 
excellent. Be sure I will soon follow you. I will spend the summer 
and fall in roving over those broad prairies we hear so much of, and 
then, darling, we will begin the new year as man and wife." 

Here followed an insane interval, the incidents of which are only 
known to the squirrels that squatted on the overhanging branches, and 
watched the happy lovers. 

« And you will not be ashamed to take me from so poor a house as 
my aunt's, Eobert?" asked Lucy. 

" No, Lucy ; and the busybody spoke false who said, as it was 
reported to you, that if my father lived he would not consent to my 
marrying you. My dear father," continued Bobert, with heightened 
colour, '^ was a tme republican in all his ideas ; he honoured labour, 
scorned what was mean in prince or peasant alike, and pri2ed worth, 



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Dead Broke. 195 

honesty, and inteUigence wherever he found them. And who are the 
Flitters', do you think, Lucy ?*' 

"WeU, no," continued Eobert, laughing, "I don't believe that 
even to you I ought to divulge the confidence Flitters reposed in me 
when he found himself beyond the ken of the old eagle ; oh ! if she 
knew she would swoop down upon the poor little man's shining bald 
head," and again Eobert laughed heartily. " I half suspect, Lucy," 
he continued, " that once upon a time, and no distant time either, a cer- 
tain near relative of Mrs. Flitters was in the habit of paying business 
visits to the ash baireLs in a certain district in the Bowery in New 
York. Oh, it is too ridiculous ; come along, little girl, set about pack- 
ing your trunk when you get home, and be ofE to Iowa, or Bowery 
Uppertendom will crush you under the wheels of its spick-and-span 
new carriage.'' 

In the commencement of the new year Eobert M^Qregor and Lucy 
Evans were married in Iowa, and, after a short bridal trip, returned 

to F , to commence housekeeping at the cottage. At this time 

Bobert was worth thirty thousand dollars in cash, and about twenty 
thousand in real estate. '' Sufficient for all their wants," he said to 
Lucy, '< and so they would live happy and tranquil, letting others 
strive after wealth and fame, and find how barren and cold the goal 
was when reached." 

Lucy kissed her young philosopher, and the idyl of their lives ran 
so smoothly into the prose that they were unconscious of the change. 

Among their first visitors was the Flitters family. Mrs. Flitters 
was altogether too old a campaigner to show any evidence of chagrin 
at the manner in which her matrimonial plans were defeated. So, as 
I have said, she and the Misses Flitters were among the first to call 
and tender their congratulations to the young couple. 

If you wanted evidence of Christian forgiveness and love, you 
should have heard the detonating smack with which Mrs. Flitters 
saluted the bride's cheek. Then Anna Maria and Louisa Jane followed 
suit ; but PoUy merely shook hands, and Lucy felt better pleased with 
the warm pressure of her soft hand than with the metallic kisses that 
might as well have been bites. With their hands clasped, the bride 
and Polly stood for a moment looking into each other's eyes, and from 
that time forth they were friends, and very true and dear friends, 
as time advanced. 



CHAPTER Vm. 

J. J. JENKnrS, ESQ. 

As time sped on, Bobert McGregor was by no means as popular in 

P as his father had been ; nor, indeed, did he deserve to be so. 

Doctor McGregor had been an enterprising, useful, b^evolent 

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195 Dead Broke. 

citizen ; but, with his son, the old day-dreaming habits of the boy 
remained with the man, and, though he fully inherited his father's 
goodness of heart, he lacked the opportunity which the latter's pro- 
fession afforded for active benevolence. With the exception of im- 
proving the farm he had opened shortly before his father's death, he 
embarked in no business, and, as yet, the expenses of this farm ex- 
ceeded the returns. But this did not give him any imeasiness, as his 
income was quite sufficient for his modest way of living. Quiet, 
gentlemanly, sensitive, and reserved, xmless in his own house, where 
he was prodigal of his smiles and laughter, he was far more popular 
with the poor than the rich, and the former, with whom he was much 
freer, understood him better. 

In Europe, living on his estate, he would have been a model gentle- 
man; living in his western home, on his income, which he neither 
diminished nor increased, he was looked upon by his neighbours as 
an idle gentleman, a very unpopular character in the west, ranking 
far beneath a successful knave. 

As he had money, the politicians of P made advances to him. 

'' He was just the man they wanted. They would send him to Con- 
gress." But Bobert McGregor had no taste for politics, nor ambition 
to go to Congress ; so he declined their advances and thereby saved his 
money and reputation. The only one redeeming point that the public 
of P saw in the man was that, for public enterprises, town im- 
provements, and good objects, he was always most liberal with his 

money. So the busy, active little world of P settled down to let 

him have his own way, neutral in regard to him in its like or dislike. 
If a loving happy home is a desirable thing, Bobert MoCbregor's 

was not a bad one after all, and if the public of P had little 

difficulty in discovering his imperfections, his wife had still less in 
finding out his perfections. Nor did the charge of idleness lie at his 
door, when he worked, under Lucy's supervision, in the garden ; but, 
then, in pushing work through, there is a great deal in a boss, and 
such a boss as Bobert had. The love-light in her blue eyes, her laugh 
that set all the birds a-singing, the dapping of her little hands when 
a piece of work was successfully gone through, were all equal to 
draughts of wine to the labourer, and very often during the day did 
he rest upon his garden spade, and look at the boss, and very often 
during the day did the boss refresh him. 

I strongly suspect that a good deal of Bobert's unpopularity was 
caused by the jealousy of those fellows who had shrews at home, and 
envied him his happiness. 

The second summer Bobert worked in the garden he had two 
bosses, '* baby and I." But the new boss was only a sleeping partner 
in the concern, and, as his judgment could not be depended upon, it 
was fortunate he never gave it. 

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Dead Broke. 197 

At this period of his life, Bobert McGregor enjoyed as much happi- 
ness as can fall to the lot of a human being, and the principal draw- 
back to that hoppiness, was his anxiety to hear of, or from, James 
Allen. " What had become of him ; was he d^d, or did he altogether 
forget his early friend P" These were questions that Bobert and Lucy 
frequently discussed, without being able to arriye at any satisfactory 
conclusion, with the exception that they acquitted James of want of 
friendship. We are all apt to judge others by ourselves, and, as 
Boberf s friendship for James was as warm now as when he bade him 
farewell, he never doubted but that the latter's sentiments also re- 
mained unchang^* *' No ; the poor fellow was dead, or, being im- 
Bucceesful in California, kept his foolish resolve of not writing — 
which was it?" 

Robert often almost resolved to set out for California in quest of 
his friend, but to this Lucy objected, and Ids disinclination to leave his 
family for the time such a journey would occupy, and the distance it 
would separate him from them, made him not urge the point. Was 
he unmarried he would assuredly have gone in search of James, and 
finding him, have told him that he, Bobert, had enough for both. 

Although Bobert was prevented from making personal search for 
the friend he never ceased to think of and love he was unceasing in 
his ioquiries in every quarter where he thought it at all likely he 
might obtain some clue that would lead to the information he sought^ 
He had several advertisements inserted in the California papers, and, 
even when seven years had elapsed since James' departure, he still 
kept up his inquiries. Not, perhaps, that he had reidly much faith 
in these efforts, as that by them he strove not to allow all hope to 
abandon him. 

During the first five years of Bobert's marriage, with the exception 
of the birth of three children, respectively named Bobert, James, and 
ICary, no incidents occurred to break in upon the tranquil life of hap- 
piness he had, seemingly, mapped out for himself. He had launched his 
boat upon a summer sea, never giving thought to the storm that might 
arise, and, consequently, was all unprepared when its force actuaUy 
broke upon him ; the young passengers that came on board from time 
to time, but made the voyage the more pleasant. 

The second boy was named after James Allen, and the little girl 
after Polly Flitters, who was her godmother. 

Polly was now the only immarried daughter left in the brick house 
op]>osite; yes, fate had smiled on that able woman, Mrs. Flitters, and 
robbed her of her two oldest daughters, within three years after the 

family had settled in P . They were taken off in regular order 

after all, which fact mollified Mrs. Flitters' feelings towards the inmate 
of the cottage very much. The first to go off was Anna Maria, who 
married a yoimg man who had been clerking for Mr. Flitters, and who 

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198 Dead Broke. 

went further west to set up in business for himself. And^ from 
accounts, the young couple were doing well in their new home. But 
the great event of Mrs. Flitters' matrimonial schemes was the marriage 
of her second daughter, Louisa Jane, to J. J. Jenkins, Esq., a western 
speculator, and a man worth millions in prospectiye. 

Building cities was Jenkins' speciality. At leisure moments, just 
in the lull of the rush of business he was always in, he would pay a 
little attention to comer lots, pick a few (out of his portmanteau) 
nicely marked on highly coloured plates, and sell them to you ''for 
merely nominal prices;" but his regular business was to build a oity 

out of hand, fie had stepped o£E the train at P , on his way to 

Lake Superior, where one of his largest cities was going up, just to 
get a tooth filled, and '' thought he would look round a little to see if 
he could not make a couple of hundred thousand dollars or so now 
that he was here.*' While looking round he got acquainted with the 
Flitters, and, indeed, with almost all the people of means in the town. 

He was the sensation of P . When he stood on the steps of 

the post-office, with the lappels of his coat thrown back, displaying in 
full his white vest and broad chest, he was sure to have a group of 
admirers around him, and how contemptible seemed the small safe 
business some of them were engaged in, compared with those great 
undertakings which Jenkins spoke of so carelessly. His dash, display, 
and great expectations had a bewildering effect on Flitters, without 
exactly impressing him with any great amount of confidence. 

He supposed it was all right in the regular way of business, that 
Jenkins should roll out new cities as he, Flitters, rolled out sugar and 
molasses barrels ; but, as the matter was out of the family groceiy 
and provision line, he did not pretend to know how it was done. 

Mrs. Flitters was completely fascinated with the dash and style of 
Jenkins ; she had given up the idea of finding the disguised English 
nobleman out west ; but Jenkins actually surpassed her ideal, and he 
was '' cap in hand " with all the English nobility, having paid flying 
visits to England, and talked of having Lord Tom and Sir Harry out 
to ^end a month, fishing with him on Lake Superior, in a manner 
that showed on what intimate terms he stood with those distinguished 
men. And he had really promised Lady Blanche, Lord Tom*s sister, 
'' that, should he get married one of these days, he would bring his 
wife over to England, on a visit to Lady Blanche." 

Kow, it must not be supposed that Jenkins was a common lying 
cheat; he had been in England, had met with live lords, had made 
them believe in him and in his great schemes, because he believed in 
them himself. 

About the time I am writing of western speculation was at fever 
heat. The rapid growth of Chicago, on Lake Michigan, had set people 
crazy. Wherever there was a sheet of water, or a stream that could 

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Dead Broke. igg 

torn a mill-wheel, all that was neceesary to oommence the building of 
a city there, was as mnoh money as would pay for the survey and maps 
of the town site ; those maps, plentifully furnished with black lines, 
representing railroads in prospective— eyexything was in prospective-^ 
had only to be shown, when numbers rushed forward, either to take 
shares in the new company that had secured the site, or to buy lots at 
ridiculously high prices. 

Was the history of 'this speculative mania written, some of its in- 
cidents would surpass the wildest romance, and afford materials for 
tragedy, comedy, and farce. While there was an innumerable number 
of knaves that committed the most barefaced swindles, there were 
others who entered upon the wildest speculations, fully as duped by 
their own heated imagination as the dupes they brought in after 
them* 

Jenkins belonged more to the latter than the former dass ; he had 
already sunk some thousands, all he was worth, in one of the new 
(prospective) cities on Lake Superior, and his real business in 
Michigan was to settle some of the shares of the company. 

He was a man about thirty-five years of age, with an open coun- 
tenance, dear voice, ringing laugh, and a singular adaptability of 
manner and perception of character. Had he been bom an English 
nobleman, he might have been one of Her Majesty's ministers, 
or a fashionable blackleg ; being an American, he came West, and 
expanded into a western speculator — a character that frequently 
combines and harmonises traits that are found distinct in the two 
former characters. 

Being introduced to the Flitters, Jenkins, as he said himself, " rea- 
lised the situation at once." Mrs. Flitters, vulgar, ambitious, vain, 
and foolish. Two marriageable daughters, some dash about the 
elder, more in his style than Polly. Flitters, no doubt, under the 
pressure of Mra Flitters, would come down handsomely, and he was 
the stamp of a safe kind of a father-in-law to fall back upon ; one, 
too, that you could leave a wife with for an indefinite time, while you 
were attending to business. Accordingly, the friend of Lord Tom, 
Sir Hany, and Lady Blanche, and owner of countless wealth in pro- 
spective, proposed, and was accepted by Louisa Jane, to the triumph- 
ant joy of Mrs. Flitters, Flitters making no objection. He had with 
the most vacant stare, looked over several maps that Jenkins had set 
before him, and spent the rest of the evening violently polishing the 
bald spot When the morning of the wedding arrived. Flitters pre- 
sented his son-in-law with a check for two thousand dollars, which 
the latter stuck carelessly in his vest pocket, merely remarking, 
*' Thank you, father-in-law ; it will help to buy the cigars." 

Flitters retreated, rubbing, if possible, more violently than ever, 
the polished crown. 

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200 Dead Broke. 

'' I don't exactly understand it," he said; ''but I suppose Mrs. 
Flitters does, and I haTe followed her directions. We had quite a 
settlement drawn up, binding Simpson (Anna Maria's husband,) and I 
don't believe there is a steadier young man in the county. To be 
sure, he never thought of building a city, and that's where the 
difterence is, Mrs. Flitters says." 

After a short bridal tour to Niagara and back, Mr. Jenkins left his 
wife at her father's, and went to see after the new city he was building on 
the shores of Lake Superior. He returned with five thousand dollars, 
his share of the sum realised by the company by the sale of a few 
outstanding lots. He reported the most fabulous prices offered and 
refused for lots in the business parts of the new city. The speculative 
fever increased; new companies started all over the country; and 
heretofore staid, sensible men gave their money to build large hotels 
in places where there was not a human being residing within many 

miles, or a road chopped out. Almost the only one in P who was 

not susceptible to the excitement, or in any way affected by it, was 
Flitters. '' It was out of his line," he said. Even Eobert McGregor 
was seized with a desire to speculate just a little. The contrast be- 
tween himself and the bustling, active, energetic Jenkins, whom he 
frequently met, began to appear to him as in favour of the latter. 
Without in the least becoming tired of his quiet life, with its love and 
peace and simple joys, the example of the restless energy of Jenkins 
affected him now just as Jim Allen's restless spirit used to rouse him 
out of his day-dreams when both were boys. 

However, there were difficulties in the way of his speculating. He 
had firmly resolved that his cash capital in bank, and which was 
drawing six per cent interest, should never be interfered with. This 
he had set apart for his wife and children, and not the most tempting 
allurements could alter his mind. I must do Jenkins the justice 
to say that he had used no direct influence to induce Eobert McGregor 
to enter into any of his (Jenkins') speculations. 

" If you have your mind made up, McGregor," — Jenkins called 
every man by his name, without any prefix to it, half an hour after 
he got to know him, — " if you have your mind made up about keeping 
your funds in bank, why, it's all right; but before I would have 
money, only drawing six per cent., I would play pitch with it ; how- 
ever, as I have said, that's your business ; but you have real estate, 
have you not V 

"Yes," replied Eobert, "several lots, and some land dose to the 
town." 

*• Well, sell some of your own property in this humdrum little 
town, and invest the money in a city that, not yet two years old, is 
destined to have its hundred thousand inhabitants before ten years, 
and its round half million in twenty years." ^ , 

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Dead Broke, joi 

AoooTdingljy Robert sold some property, a small amount at first, 
and invested it in the new city. Within a month he was offered 
three times the amount he paid for the property he purchased. Like 
others, he grew excited, he sold out, with the exception of the 
cottage and the ground it was built on — ^all his property in and 

around P , and invested every dollar of the money realised in 

Jenkins' city. 

I suppose fate has decreed that we are to be rich folks, after all, 
Lucy, he said," 

"Orpoor, Kobert!" 

*' Why, you little croaker. But really, Lucy, I have only risked 
what was bringing us little or nothing. I have not risked my greatest 
treasure, my little wife," and he playfully caught her in his arms. 

" Mr. Jenkins would tell you I was not negotiable paper, Bobert," 
replied Lucy, disengaging herself from her husband's arms, and 
blushing at that praise which is ever sweet to a true wife. 

This was in 1856, and in the following year came the financial 
crash of fifty-seven, so widespread in the West that it had the appear- 
ance of a national bankruptcy. Banks and bubbles broke dike ; 
embryo cities and towns went back to their normal state — ^portions of 
the primeval forests, and bears and wolves lodged unmolested in 
''Lafayette Avenues" and " Washington Squares." 

Jenkins' great city, on Lake Superior, met the common fate ; resi- 
dents who the year before used actually to keep out of the way of 
speculators that every steamboat that arrived landed on the wharf, in 
quest of comer lots, now offered their properties to captains of steam- 
boats for a passage to Detroit, Buffalo, or Chicago. 

One of this daes said to the writer, in '57, on board the ill-fated 
Lai^ Mgin, from whose good-natured captain the late wealthy, — ^in 
prospective — citizen of Jenkins' great city, was getting a free passage : 
*' They, the speculators, were shaking iiie bags of gold at [us, until 
we got frightened, and ran away." 

He was running away in 1857, not from gold, but from the ruin, 
the stagnation, the utter poverty that had fallen upon the place. 

Li this ooUapse of the bright bubbles of speculalion, Bobert 
McOr^lor was rained ; in his case, indeed, it appeared that irretriev- 
able ruin had overtaken him. Li the case of such a man as 
Jenkins, it was but a knock down and a jump up again, but with the 
other, it was the first and final blow. 

The first news that came to Bobert, was the failure of the bank in 
which his money was deposited. It seemed that owners heretofoze 
esteemed as safe, honourable men, had speculated with their own 
capital, and the funds entrusted to their keeping, in the most reckless 
manner, and their liabilities far exceeeded their assets. It was 
fortunate, perhaps, for Bobert that he did not immediately recognise 

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202 Three Fair Rivals. 

the full extent of his losses. Some little time elapsed before he gave 
up all hope of recovering some portion of his capital lodged in the 
bank. Then he wrote to Jenkins, who, with his wife, had gone to 
New York, telling him that he wished to sell out, at any sacrifice, the 
real estate he had purchased in the new city, on Lake Superior. He 
received a characteristic reply from that gentleman. 

"It is all up, McGregor," he wrote. "I don't believe you could 
get a man who would take the property off your hands on condition 
to pay the taxes. It is devilish imlucky ; the cleanest sweep I ever 
knew ; but we'll pull through and come out yet right side up. Ewbre 
nou8, was not that stupid little father-in-law of mine wise in his 
generation? Fortunate, wasn't it? He can help me a little to get 
on my legs, for I feel slightly groggy. Nasty weather here, all slush 
and rain. 

^' Tours to conmiand, 

"J. J. Jenkhts." 

(To be continued.) 



THREE FAIE EIVALS* 



THIS is an age of competitive examinations. It has so chanced that 
three of our poetesses have unwittingly entered into such a com- 
petition by sending to us, almost on the same day, three poems on the 
same sacred theme. They are rivals also as representatives of three 
countries and of three states of lif e^ — an Irish maiden, an English, 
matron, and a Scottish Sister of Mercy. Let us set their poems forth 
in the order thus indicated. Their subject is the one that Lamartine 
sang in his earliest and best days. " La Lampe du Temple " is the 
fourth of the first book of his " Harmonies Po6tiques et Beligieuses." 
Even in a tame prose translation it delighted one euchanstic soul 
years ago, in the appendix to some pious book which called it " the 
exquisite eflhision of a celebrated French poet." Why was not La- 
martine named plainly, even if they could not give the poem in 
French as we think it well to give it to our readers now ? 

P&le lampe du sanctuaire, 

Pourquoi dans I'ombre du saint lieu, 
Inaper9ue ct solitaire, 

Te consumes-tu dejant Dieu ? r^ i 

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Three Fair Rivals. 203 

Oe n'M paf pour dinger I'aile 

De U pridre oa de Tamoar, 
Poor 6elairer, faible itincelle, 

L'ceil de Oelui qui fit le jour. 

Ce n'est pas pour €oarter Toinbre 

Dm pas de MS adorateurt ; 
La Taste nef n'est que plus sombre 

Perant tes lointaines bieurs. 

Oe n'eet pas poor lui faire hommage 

Dee f eoz qui sous see pas ont lui ; 
Lee eieux loi rendent temoignage, 

Lee soleils brfilent derant Lui. 

Et poartant, lampee sTinboliquee, 

Yous gardes Toe feuz immortelle 
Bt la brise dee basiliques 

Yous beroe sur tous les autels. 

Bt mon OBil aime h se suspendre 

A oe fqjer a^rien, 
Et je leur dis sans les comprendre : 

Flambeaux pieuz, tous faitee bien. 

Ten other stanzas fdlow these six, but they grow still more vague 
and mystical ; and one wonld find it hard to learn from Lamartine the 
real significance of the Lamp of the Sanctuary. Faith speaks more 
clearly in these lines of Miss CassieM. O'Hara, which she calls '' The 
Sanctuary Star." 

It beats not from the quiet heart of nij^ 

Athwart her Test of deep'ning blue ; 
It weaTes no fitful, fiery path of light 

Through woodlands wet with tears of dew. 
It swims not, peaily herald of the day, 

Up from the lonely orient deeps ; 
Nor doth it shroud its STer eonstant ray 

When noon is thron'd en HeaTen's steeps* 
But nearer far than sky, or doad, or sons. 
Calming fierce wills that fret and war— 
Luring lost hearts back to this altar-throne, 
It i^es, sweet Tabemade Star. 

High o'er cathedral shrines ; in cloisters dim ; 

In coral-girdled isles that rest 
On tropic seas ; where floats the Indian's hymn 

In foreet chancels of the West ; 
Amid the broad SaTannah's Terdant bloom 

By mount and stream and jewelled mine : 
Where'er the Tictor-eross bath broke the gloom, 

It lights the path unto God's shrine. 
The magnet-ray of ey'ry heart and eye. 

Guiding weak feet that stray afar, 
Hope's rainbow gleam, when dark despair is nigh, 

It shines, sweet Tabernacle Star. 
Vol. X. No. 106. Digitized tjGoOgle 



^04 Three Fair Rtvak. 

All pure and oalm, it ■treamt aboTe the din 

Of reetlcM human wills and wayf» 
Lift'ning the Taried tales of woe and gin 

Sobbed out beneath its ruby rays. 
The broken hearts of earth oome then to sigh, 

The wounded waits for healing balm, 
And falt*ring wills beneath its steadfast eye 

Are girt with God*s own strength and calm. 
And yirgin brows are wreathM with its light, 

And pure young hearts grow purer far 
And scale with generous step perfection's height 

Beneath thy smile, sweet altar-star. 

Then shine, shine on, by weary day and night 

Shine on, through life to hopeful death — 
Athwart the shadows of our eblnng sight, 

Arise, pale star of Iots and faith ! 
When Toioes hushed prodaim Him near, arise 

And thrill the calm with thy soft rays ; 
Shed o'er that hour of tears, and breaking ties 

The peace of life*s communion days. 
Oh, shine, shine on, till glorious light aboTe 

His sacramental bondage rends— 
• Till hope is lost in full fruition's love, 

And faith in fadeless Tision ends. 

Still more of the Bimple, practical tone of real prayer is discernible 
ixL the lines which Mrs. Fentrill addresses to " The Altar Star." Her 
expression " How gladly turn away I" reminds me of words which she 
cannot have seen, for no one ever saw them. They occurred in a <' Visit 
to the Blessed Sacrament," in which the worshipper begs our Divine 
Lord to grant him '^ a more yivid faith, a more burning love, and a 
keener pang of self-reproach at feeling it a relief to retire from his 
presence.'* 

O happy lamp I O happy life ! 

Brer to watch before the Lord, 
Away from all our fears and strife, 
Our sorrows, our discord. 

Ton see the angels in the night, 

Adoring glorias hear them sing ; « 

Tou see the holy mystic light 

That shines around the King. 

You hear the plaints of Jesus* Heart, 
That Heart so patient, so f onaken, 
Whose cries of love can on our part 
An echo scarce awaken. 

You hear our footsteps heedless pass 

Beyond the church's open door ; 
You hear us laugh — we laugh, alas ! 
While Jesus' Heart is sore. 



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Three Fair Rivals. 205 

Toa know how ■hort a time we kneel, 

How few and cold the prayers we eaj, 
Ton know how soon we wearj feel — 
How gladly turn awaj. 

Mj lamp of lore 'mid earih'e dnit lies 

The world's cold winds around it blow, 
And 'neath their breath it all but dies 
And flickers to and fro. 

Dear, faithful lamp \ then plead for me 

In thr lone watches of the night, 
That I in heayen maj bum like thee, 
With pure, undying light. 

.^Finallyj it is thus that the Scottish Nun, working among the Irish 
poor in London, speaks '' To Jesus on the Altar." 

Most gentle Byes ! from out Thy curtained dwelling 

Watching thy spouses with unceasing care, 
Thy winning glance all fear and doubt dispelling, 

We lift our earth -dimmed eyes to Thine, and dare 
To keep them fixed upon Thee all the day 

Letting Thy stillness quiet our unrest, 
Thy peacefulness our tumult, and alway 

Seeking that all we do by Thee be blest 

Dear wounded Hands ! the cruel nail-prints wearing, 

All eloquent of ransom dearly paid — 
Now richest graces to Thy children bearing 

As they are gently on each bowed head laid. 
We stretch our trembling hands beseechingly 

Towards those sacred ones once red with blood, 
That, touching them, our poor vain gifts may be 

Hade holy offerings of gratitude. 

Sweet Lips Divine ! forever gently preaching 

Mysterious wisdom all earth's lore above. 
In soft and tender accents only reaching 

The ears made delicate by faith and loye. 
Cleanse our stained lips in waters of compunction 

From all that could assoil their purity, 
Till they too speak — touched by the Spirit's unction, 

Heart meeting heart in sweetest colloquy. 

Spear-riven Heart ! whose pulses ceaseless beating 

Are living yoioes changeless love to tell. 
From whose calm depths where all delights are meeting 

We drink as from a cool ezbaustless well. 
We bring to Thee our human hearts all throbbing 

With varied impulses of joy or pain ; 
Now light and gay— now in deep anguish sobbing — 

Always secure Thy sympathy to gain. 

Where the strain is so sacred, it seems wrong to notice a mere 
technical fault ; but surely the ear would be better pleased il^ Sisten 

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ao6 Thru Fair Rivals, 

Maiy Agnes had managed to get rid of the two exceptions which oocor 
in the two first of these stanzas and had made all the odd lines end 
with xmaccented syllables. Do onr three poetic specimens in this 
paper form a climax or an anticlimax, or neither ? Fortunately, we 
are not called upon just now to decide this very delicate question. 

« • « 
The foregoing trio of eucharistic pieces had been sent to the printer 
when some other pages on the same divine theme fluttered accidentally 
out of a pigeonhole, where they had lain since last September. The 
writer, " G. E. M." begged that the Editor, if forced to reject her 
verses, would, at least, give his opinion of them in his next issue. But 
we have no department for " Answers to Correspondents," and this 
<* school-girl of fifteen " has probably, months ago, ceased her look- 
out for some editorial reference to her <' Evening Visit to the Blessed 
Sacrament." 

Sweet ere bee come. The loTelj gleame 

Of sunset pour in g^orgeous streams 

Upon the altar-throne where He, 

Our God, our Loye, has chosen to be. 

Here, Jesus, will I come to pray. 
My burden at Thy feet 111 hiy ; 
Thou wilt my grief with love allay, 
And take my care and pain away. 

The red lamp bums before Thy shrine — 
Would that its happy lot were mine^ 
To be for e'er before Thee here, 
To tell all men that Thou art near. 

• 
Before the tabernacle I 
Will linger, and will softly sigh, 
Because my heart is cold towards Thee 
Who here dost wait for loTe of me. 

Oh ! hear my prayer, sweet Jesus, hear! 
Qiye me the lore that *' casts out fear." 
Thy Heart is pure, thy Heart is mild^— 
Make mine the same, Bedeemer kind t 

Forgive me for my want of lore, 

By her who reigns as Queen above. 

She lores Thee as no creature e*er 

Has loved The^ Thou Lamb most fair ! 

Bless me, O Lord, before I go I 

Poor though I am, and mean and low ; 

Thou lovest me — ^and I desire 

To love Thee with a quenchless fire. 

Help me to vanquish all my foee. 

And guide me through this world of woes; 

Grant, though afBictions on me fall, 

That I may ever on Thee call. ^^ ^ ^ ^T ^ 

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i A Choi about Montreal. 207 

Thus lead me, Jesiu, SaTiour mild 1 
Keep free my heart from aught deflled» 
Until I reach that home aboye 
Where ooIdneBa mutt give place to loTe. 

As '^G. E. M.'' is now half a year nearer to her sixteenth birthday 
than ahe was when she wrote these lines, she is probably able to detect 
a certain poverty and sameness in her rhymes, though they are all 
coziBCt, except mUd and kind, Ab regards Uie substance of the little 
poem, it would have more merit if it had more faults. ]l£any of the 
couplets are vag^e, general, and impersonal; and after the first stanza 
our young poetess forgot altogether, that she was paying an *' Evming 
Tisit to the BLessed Sacrament." 

M.B. 



A CHAT ABOUT MONTREAL. 

BY AK AHXBIOAN LADY. 

IN tfaeae days of quick travel, and constant communication between 
the two worldsi my little sketch of Montreal and its ways is likely 
to be a ^'twice-told tale;" but, as one likes talking of a dear far-off 
friend, and dwells tenderly on that friend's erexy look and gesture, 
so do I loye to linger oyer the memories of tiiat city by the St. 
Lanzenoe. 

You leaye New York in either the morning or evening, and arrive 
in Montreal in twelve hours. The evening train seems to me prefer- 
able, as the sleeping cars are comfortable, and you can sleep away 
honzB of the journey otherwise tedious. If, during the long days, you 
have thejdaylight far up the picturesque Hudson (the American Ehine) ; 
andylby the time the dusky shadows are falling, Poughkeepsie is reaohedi 
and there is a pleasant interlude of supper. By nine o'clock the negio 
porter begins to make the beds, which he aooompUBhes with marveUoua 
cderityj and, presently, people are diving beneath the heavy curtains 
in a way amuRing to lookers on. You are awakened in good time, and 
struggle through your toilet under many difficulties, and soon after 
arrive at the town of St John's, where the placarded notices in French 
remind you that you are in Canada. Still on for some distance through 
a most unixiteresting country^ and then, during a pause of some 
Bunutflg| at the entrance to the celebrated Victoria Bridge^ to ascertain 

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2o8 A Chat about Montreal. 

if it is empty, the eye naturally travels to Montreal, across the river, 
lying quiet and picturesque in the morning light. The dear old 
towers of Notre Dame stand out dearly against the sky, like sturdy 
sentinels keeping watch over the river ; and much lower, but distinct, 
the little belfry of Notre Dame de Bon Secours may be seen, where, 
through all weathers. Our Lady of Gbod Help keeps a look out for 
her absent sailors, and greets them on their return from the dangers 
of the sea. Farther back arise a host of spires of glittering tin, or 
wanner red roofs of the town, and, above aU, the solemn Mont Boyal^ 
at whose feet the city nestles. 

A rush into the bridge, dense blackness, with intermittent flashes 
of light from the air-holes over head, a choking smell of gas, not 
pleasant to inhale, and then out again into the light, and through 
dreary suburbs, till Bonaventure Station is reached. Anyone who 
likes Montreal thoroughly, and is very very glad to get back there 
again, looks cordially on the wretched old bam dignified by the name 
of station ; but, to a critical observer, it must be dreadful, as also the 
narrow lanes of streets, lying around and about ; but, once away in 
the Windsor omnibus, in one of the extraordinary gilt and painted 
cabs (miniature Lord Mayors' coaches), and up the steep hill to the 
civilised portion of the dty, one forgets the station and finds plenty to 
admire in the appearance of the place. 

After a bath and an excellent breakfast (if at the Windsor one is 
very apt to enjoy one's breakfast), the outside world looks so tempting^ 
tiiat to set out in one of those comfortable-looking sleighs at the door 
seems the first thing to be done. The ever-offidous cabby hdps you 
in, piles a quantity of fur rugs upon you, and goes off at a break-neck 
pace; along Dorchester-street and down Beaver Hill, to the business 
part of the town. As you fly along you catch glimpses of rows of 
gray stone houses, with double windows, and red weather-tftrips — of 
the St. James's Club, where, if you belong to the masculine gender, 
and have any friends in town, you will be,* probably, made wdoome in 
a day or two— and, fui*ther down the hill the Metropolitan Club, where 
the convivially disposed youth of the dty spend many of their many 
idle hours. A few seconds more and you are in St. James's-street, 
whereon are most of the banks, the Post Office, and many handsome 
buildings; the well-known Bank of Montreal, a solid, Gredan-looking 
structure, perhaps the most impodng. It fronts (as does also the 
French Cathedral, Notre Dame) on a square called Place d'Armes. 

This cathedral is built far back £rom the dde-walk, and is ap- 
proached by a series of terrace-like steps. You push open, with 
difficulty, the heavy swinging doors, and find yourself in a vast church ; 
the roof lofty and blue, star-studded ; everywhere masses of eastern- 
looking decoration. There are a great number of altars about the 
ohurch, and an exquidte marble statue of the Blessed Virgin, presented 

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A Chat about ManireaL 209 

by Pius IX. The choir of this church is composed of boys' voices 
exquisitely trained. Their rendering of the Pa49sion music in Holy 
Week is something to remember. 

Coming out into the wintry air again, you find yourself in Notre 
Dame-street, also devoted to business, but consisting principally of 
smaller retail stores. A block or so away from the cathedral is an 
archway, through which you see the tiny chapel of Notre Dame de 
Piti^, belonging to the ladies of the '' Congregation de Notre Dame." 
It is a pretty little shrine, and is famous for its miraculous statue, 
before which numerous votive offerings speak of successful petitions. 
To your left, as you go out, a small gateway in a high stone wall leads 
into the grounds of the convent, and, through the open door, is visible 
the quaint old house, one of the real antiquities of Montreal. The 
Order was founded by Marguerite Bourgeois,* in the early days of 
Canada. She and her nuns are very conspicuous in the history of 
that time, by their pious labours among the settlers and the Indi£tn 
tribee. The principcd convent school of these nuns is Yilla Maria, 
situated on the mountain-side, outside the city, and it is worthy of a 
chapter in itself. 

The next place on your route is, probably, the Bon Secours, of 
which you caught a glimpse awhile ago from the other side of the 
liver. You drive along Notre Dame-street for several blocks, turn a 
comer down a steep hill, and find yourself at the entrance, not by any 
means prepossessing. In dose proximity is the market ; and behind 
lie the wharves : it is, therefore, anything but an aristocratic locality. 
'Within it is still dirty and unattractive ; the kneeling figures scattered 
about do not add to its charm, artistically speaking ; but there is a 
feeling of devotion about the place which holds one. The altar is 
handsome, of solid-looking gilt work. Before it hangs a silver ship 
(the lamp of the sanctuary), a votive offering from some pious souls, 
who, in imminent danger of death at sea, vowed to send a model of their 
ship to Our Lady of Gk>od Help if rescued. To the left of the altar is 
a picture, commemorative of the awful time of the ship fever. Under 
the wretched sheds, thrown up hastily for them, lie the miserable 
victims, attended by their ministering angels, the Qray Nuns, who are 

* While we were in the act of handing this paper to the printer, the TeMet of 
March 4th, gare us the latest information about this Tenerable woman. On the 9th of 
Pebruary, the H0I7 Father, Leo XIII., ratified a decree of the Sacred Congregation of 
Sites which confirmed the judgment of the Bishop of Montreal on the veneration paid 
to the saintly Fbundress of the Sisters of Notre Bame. The cause of her beatification 
will, therefore, be commenced forthwith. Father Captier, Procurator-General of the 
6iilpieiaDS» is named by the Holy See postulator of the cause. The part of promoter 
of the Faith (or Devil's Advocate, as he is commonly called), whose duty it is to sift 
the evidence, crow-examine witnesses, and say everything that can be said against the 
servant of God, was taken at the recent meeting of the Sacred Congregation by the 
learned Monsignor Laurence Salvati — JSi. 2. Jf. ^^ ^ ^ ^ T ^ 

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2IO A Chat about Montreal. 

one of the boasts of MontreaL In the background one sees Monneig- 
neur Bourget, then the bishop, now ex-bishop, of Montreal* adminis- 
tering the last sacraments to one who is evidently dying. Apropos of 
the fever it made such ravages among the Gray Nuns, that it became 
necessary to seek further help. The nuns of the Hotel Dieu are 
strictly cloistered, but they applied for and obtained permission to 
come forth from their seclusion, and take the places of the dead 
^'Sceurs Oris^s." One recalls, while looking at this picture, the 
harrowing events of the plague, and the many instances of heroism 
connected with it, till the tears rise imbidden. Many of the children 
of these emigrants, left orphans, were adopted and cared for by chari- 
table people, and occupy good positions in Canada to-day. The altar 
of the Blessed Virgin here, as in most of the churches of the city, is 
aglow with tapers, burning for the myriad intentions of the people. 

On your way up town again you see something of the wholesale 
business streets — St Peter and St. PauL If you go up by Bleury- 
street, and have still time before luncheon, there is the beautiful 
Church of the "Gesu," the fashionable church of MontreaL The interior 
decorations are all in neutral tints, restful and harmonious to the eye. 
There are two fine paintings on either side of the grand altar : one, 
St. Aloysius receiving his Pirst Communion from the hand of St. 
Charles Borromeo, while his father and mother kneel reverentially 
outside the rails. On the other side, an angel giving the Blessed 
Sacrament to St. Stanislaus Xostka, in a Protestant church, whither 
he has strayed in mistake. He is in his pilgrim's garb, and his face 
wears a rapt expression of adoration. T^ere are, besides the altars 
of the Sacred Heart, and the famous one of Notre Dame de liesse, 
two side altars dedicated to different saints of the Society of Jesus. 
Next door to the church is St. Mary's College, under the direction of 
the Jesuit Fathers. 

Kot vexy much out of your way home is the Chapel of ^Nazareth, 
attached to the Blind Asylum. It is an exquisite little gem ; the 
beautiful frescoes were done, as a labour of love, by a French gentle- 
man of Montreal, who is poet, painter, and musician all in one. It 
is very touching to see the blind children groping their way to the 
altar; there seems, however, no lack of light-heartednees among 
them ; for on summer mornings, while praying in the chapel, you can 
hear their voices singing and shouting outside, happy as the birds, 
which so thickly poptdate the trees about the place. The time to go 
to the Nazareth is at five in the evening, when the Gray Nuns come 
in to say the Itosaiy. There is such an air of peace and rest about it, 
that you almost forget the cold world and its storms b^ond the 
chapel-door. 

By this time the morning is gone and you return to the Windscnr 
Hotel to luncheon, ravenously Jiungxy and pretty wdl tired out 

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A Chat ahotU Montreal. 211 

The only exploring you are likely to do in the afternoon is the hotel 
itself, through wMch you wander lazily admiring the luxury and 
comfort of the appointments. Even the elevator is worth a glance : it 
took the prize at the " Centennial/' and is generally a well-behaved| 
and in all respects excellent arrangement ; but it has its weak move- 
ments, and has been known to remam absolutely suspended between 
earth andheaven, like Mahomet's tomb, till fresh steam, put on below, 
enabled it to go on its way. Hard by the elevator isNotman's, the great 
Canadian photographer's show-room, fitted up in thoroughly artistic 
fashion ; here are to be seen most of the celebrities who have honoured 
Montreal from time to time, from the Marquis of Lome, and H.R.H. 
Princess Louise, down to the last new actress. There are several 
pictures of Lord and Lady DufEerin (Canada's prime favourites), and 
numerous groups of people engaged in the national amusements of 
finow-shoeing, skating, and lots of gaming. In a glass-case are dis- 
played specimens of Indian work and curiosities ; the room is well 
worth a visit ; and one is not always expected to buy, but can go look- 
ing about in peace. You have already, no doubt, observed the grand 
dining-room and ladies' ordinary, botii remarkably handsome rooms ; 
the drawing-rooms, splendid corridors, and the Botunda, after that, 
with the exception of the bridal apartments, the rooms are much the 
same, comfortable and thoroughly well kept. 

Glancing from the window over the ladies entrance you see the 
unfinished Bishop's Church. In the east end is the beautiful new 
Church of Lourdes, another of the sights of Montreal, the frescoes of 
which are by the some artist who painted the Nazareth, and are 
wonderfully beautiful. In other parts, the Irish have their own St. 
Patrick's, and there are many other interesting churches. 

The afternoon drive in Montreal, well wrapped in furs, is 
thoroughly pleasant. On a real Canadian day the sun shines out 
brilliantly till the icicles on the trees turn to diamond-wreaths, and 
the snow crunches under the horse's feet as you whirl along 
Bherbrooke or Dorchester-street, or Union- Avenue, and sometimes out 
past Montreal College, belonging to the Sulpicians, leaving the toll- 
gate and the dty far behind. There it is nothing but a great expanse 
of snow, varied by the dark shade of the pines. If you drive around 
the mountains you get back into town when the West is aglow with 
the setting sun ; the glimpse of the exquisite rose-hues seen along 
the vista of bare, snpw-laden trees, with perhaps a tender moon 
coming out overhead, lingers long in the memory. All along the 
streets go merxy groups in snow-shoeing costume, blanket coats, red 
woollen sashes, and blue or red caps, dragging their toboggans or 
shouldering their snow-shoes, sometimes singing in subdued voices. 
If one had time to follow them, they might presently be seen on the 
hills outside the town, taking their breathless course down the hill. 

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212 A Chat about Montreal. 

on toboggans, or striding off in their snow-shoes, so outlandish look- 
ing to unaccustomed eyes. There is a heartiness, a freshness in 
these enjoyments, very delightful, the only drawbacks to toboggan- 
ing being the tiresome walk up hill, which amounts to drudgery, and 
the far more important one of accidents, not unfrequent and some- 
times yery serious. 

Earlier in the afternoon, the beauty and fashion are visible above 
their furs in their handsome sleighs, driving up and down town, 
through the fashionable quarters ; but by dusk, they have disappeared 
from the vulgar gaze, behind the portals of the gray stone mansions 
along Sherbrooke and Dorchester-streets, and up the mountain-side, 
where the lights of Bavenscrag, the palatial residence of Sir Hugh 
Allen, the eminent ship-owner, shine out over the snowy land- 
scape. Very pleasant, indeed, do the lights of home look to those 
hurrying towards them, with noses and finger-tips unromantically 
red ; and they are well able to appreciate the blazing fires, and well- 
spread boards awaiting them. 

I remember one Christmastide, some years ago, when a small party 
of us, staying at the old St. Laurence Hotel, went to the Skating 
Carnival at the Hink. Lord and Lady Dufferin were there, the former 
in snow-shoeing costimie ; Lady Dufferin only a looker on. It was* 
I think, the coldest night I experienced in Montreal or anywhere 
else that I have ever been ; but it was such glorious moonlight, that 
we were foolishly tempted to send our sleighs away and walk home. 
"We had scarcely gone a block before we bitterly repented our rash- 
ness, but it was too late, as the sleigh bells could only be heard 
tinkling in the distance, and there was not a conveyance of any kind, 
except those previously engaged, to be seen in the streets. We 
arrived at the hotel in a miserable condition. One of my fingers and 
both ears were frost-bitten, and the latter stuck out for some time 
afterwards in a way alarming to behold. By judicious rubbing with 
snow, any serious effects were prevented, and we were dosed with hot 
negus and sent off to bed ; but I shall never forget the walk home, 
I do not think the Arctic regions could possibly be any colder. Two 
days after we were in New York, where it was quite mild, and scarcely 
a trace of snow on the ground. 

There are one or two places besides those I have mentioned which 
all visitors go to see : such as these are the great old Catholic Hospital ; 
the Hotel Dieu, for all diseases, contagious and otherwise ; and the Gray 
Nunnery, devoted to the care of infirm old men, women, half idiot 
people, and little children. 

The principal convents are Yilla Maria, before mentioned, the Con- 
vent of the Sacred Heart at Sault au Recollet, picturesquely situated 
near the river ; and Hochelago Convent, a short distance from the city. 
"^Ula Maria, the only one with which I am well acquainted, Js^Ll^ve 



A Chat about Montr caL 2 1 3 

said, under the direction of the Ladies of the Congregation of Notre 
Dame, so beloyed in Canada. The low, rambling hoiise in the centre 
between the fine new buildings was the viceregal residence of Lord 
Elgin when in Canada ; and its quaint carvings and old-time look, 
were very delightful to the more romantic girl pupils of my time. 
What had been the ball-room, was of late years one of the music- 
parlours where we " dinged danged " all day at our *' practising ;" but 
sometimeB at dusk, when we were assembled there for some purpose or 
another, we would whisper mysteriously about the bygone dancers, 
and work ourselves into a delightful state of terror, fancying that we 
could see their spectral f onus gliding up and down outside in the 
^azed promenade, which ran along the front of the house, and peer* 
ing in through the windows. There was a legend connected with the 
place which had a peculiar interest for us. It was whispered that 
at a ball given there long ago, an ardent young lover took the oppor* 
tonity of declaring himself to the object of his passion, and being 
rejected, went away, and was not seen again until the guests were 
departing, when his lifeless body was found hanging to one of the 
trees outside ; even in those credulous days we had strong doubts of 
its truth, but it fitted in well with 'Our vivid imaginings on those 
dusky winter evenings. The grounds belonging to this convent are 
very large and fine. A short walk from the house brought us to a 
litde lake, on the margin of which we were wont to disport ourselves 
during the early summer days and evenings. Sitting in groups be- 
neath the shade of the maples, or wandering up and down singing 
hymns or snatches from the little operettas, which we sometimes per- 
formed with immense success and delight on grand occasions : dear, 
^PPy» giriifib days, how they come back to me as I write three 
thousand miles away ! To this day nothing would delight me more 
than a drive out to Villa Maria, and a long, long talk over old 
times with the nuns, who remember every trifle, and are always so 
cordial, and so glad to see you that you are almost sony to come away 
again. Bells ring, and girls go up and down, just as it all used to be ; 
but the girls of our generation are women grown, with, perhaps, a 
good many sorrows separating them from their girlhood. These 
strangers in our places look at us, and whisper among themselveSy 
that " that is So-and-So, who used to be here long ago ;" and they 
watch us from the windows with no little envy as we get into our 
sleighs, and away to unknown delights in the city beneath them. Well 
their day will come, and if they realise one twentieth of their im- 
aginings, they will do well, pauvrea en/ants, 

I have rambled on while talking about Montreal and its associa- 
tions, and yet have not told of half its beauties or its charms. Socially 
it is very pleasant. As elsewhere, there are little cliques and coteries. 
The French and English are in the main divided as completely as 

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214 -^ Chat about MofUreaL 

the boTindary-line, Bleury-street, between the East and West End, 
were a high mountain or wide riyer. The English are deddedlj the 
more fashionable : they give the grand balls, dinner-parties, amateur 
theatricals, and the usual amusements of society people ; live as a 
rule in handsomer, and more modemly-fumished houses, drive better 
turn-outs, travel more, and are more of the world altogether. The 
French live quietly, though very probably quite as substantially, if 
not more so ; give large entertainment but seldom, and, for the most 
part, lead dull and imeventful lives in the domestic cirde. They 
possess however wonderful talent for music in all dasses ; and some 
of the quiet musical evenings at French Canadian houses are 
among my pleasantest memories of Montreal. Some few of the 
French living in the West End, or by some combination of circum- 
stances, have drifted into EngUsh society, and are more English than 
the English themselves, and as a rule much more interesting. 

Very many people &om different countries have said, that once 
one has lived in Montreal, even for a short time, and learned to 
know the place and its way, that, in spite of many little shortcomings^ 
when compared with other cities, one never altogether forgets it, or 
loses the desire to visit it again* An enthusiastic girl wrote to me 
once from one of the Southern States: "I love even the old gray 
stones of Montreal — no where else seems like home." There w a 
home feeling I think, which one sometimes misses in larger dties : 
touches of the old world, its legends, and quaint customs, and yet all 
the glorious feeling of space and new life, the vivid sunlight, the 
bracing freshness of the air, and the sense of almost infinite qMioe, 
of dusky pine woods, and endless tracts of imtrodden country, stretch- 
ing out solemn and silent under the sun« 

The greatest defect of American dties, their newness, is not 
evident here* One may at any moment turn from a block of modem 
houses to a picturesque narrow street, which looks as if it were trans- 
planted from old France or Belgium ; and in the surrounding villages 
linger the traditions and many of the f allades of bygone days. The 
Americans look upon Canada as behind the age. Perhaps it is, a 
little ; that may be the secret of its charm. 



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( ^^5 ) 
AS OiFFEBU/fQ. 

BT fTRTiHH S. TAnmiB; 

I WAS a weaiy sorrowful woman 
As I crept into church to pray ; 
Outside there was noise and confusion, 
And the heat of a summer's day. 

Inside there were pleasant shadows. 

Where the great dark arches fell ; 
The air was fragrant with incense. 

And I heard the dhimes of the bell. 

There were flowers giving perfume. 

As in loneliness they bent ; 
Their sweet breath seemed an offering 

That earth to heayen sent. 

A light burned near the altar. 

And the great cross hung above ; 
From there our dear Lord watched me, 

With eyes fall of pitying lore : 

The worshippen coming and going. 

Each bowed before the shrine ; 
Everyone brought a oosUy gift, — 

But what had I for mine ? — 

Ah ! nothing worthy to offer, — 

Oh ! what had /to give ? — 
Por my heart was full of trouble. 

And life seemed hard to live. 

I had nothing to lay on the altar, 

My hands were empty and bare ; 
I was poor, and tired, and tempted, 

Yet it seemed so sweet to be there. 

I knelt with unsatisfied longisg, 

With memories sharp with pain ; 
But on my soul fell the stillness, 

Like cool drops of summer rain. 

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2i6 An Offering. 

" Peace *' whisperedlthe lovely flowers, 

And softly the quiet stole, 
Till it filled with peace and devotion 

My earth-bound, troubled soul. 

I forgot all my fret and grieving, 
That I had no gift to bring- 
No gold, nor incense, nor flowers, 
Nor any precious thing. 

I lidd at the feet of my Saviour 
An earnest and loving prayer ; 

I had nothing else to give Him, 
So I humbly placed it there. 

I turned to go out in the crowd again, 
In the world to take my part ; 

I left on the shrine my only gift — 
My poor, weak, wandering heart. 

One backward glance at the altar, 
As I moved towards the door ; 

My heart on the shrine was lying, 
But it sparkled with jewels o'er. 

Drops of blood from Christ on the cross 

Ghanged into rubies rare. 
And tiny pearls for the tears I'd shed, 

When grieving in meek despair. 

Great diamonds, with hidden fire. 
Shone for each battle's gain, 

When the fight was hard, and the foes alert, 
And the victory won through pain. 

There were opals of flashing lustre 

For every earnest prayer ; 
Each penitent thought blotted out a fault, 
And set a jewel there. 

So poverty was turned to wealth 
By Love, rich, generous, free— 

And my poor gift received, indeed, 
By Him who died for me. 



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( 211 ) 



THE MONK'S PEOPHECT. 

A TALB. 
BT ATTIE O'bBIXN. 

CHAPTER Vni. 

BREAXmO NEW GROTTND.j 

Captain HacMahon was with his mother when she died ; so were Mrs* 
Hassett and Eustace. After the funeral, Mrs. Ormsby and Sydney 
returned to the Hut ; Mrs. Hassett went to Dublin, and, after another 
week, Castleishen was shut up, and the two brothers departed also. 
The carriage that was taking them away stopped at the Hut, to bid 
farewell to its weeping occupants. Father Moran walked up and 
down clearing his throat after they were gone. 

Sydney wept as if her heart would break. ** Oh, what shall we 
do, mother ? What shall we do ? How can we live here and all of 
ihem gone?" she cried through her bitter sobs. 

*'Take courage, my girl," said Father Moran, ''take courage. 
The world is before you, dear. You won't be lonely always ; but 'tis 
lonesome enough now, I must say, very lonesome." 

Sydney did not feel much comforted by the promise of better days. 
She laid her head in her mother's lap until, wearied by her emotion, 
she fell asleep, while her mother and Father Moran talked about the 
dead and gone. 

"I intended to send Sydney to school this spring," said the widow; 
" but I feel so broken down by the loss of my dear friends, that I 
don't know what I am to do." 

" I haye been turning it over in my mind," said Father Moran, 
" and, do you know, I think it would be the best plan if you went 
with her, and let her go to a day-school." 

" How could I manage?" she replied, with a startled, eager look* 
" It would be what I should like ; but it never occurred to me." 

" Well, I don't see but you could be able to manage," said Father 
Moran. '' I think it would come to about the same. And your being 
together would be good for both. You can calculate and see if it 
would answer. Women are clever at counting cost." 

Mrs. Ormsby grasped the idea at once, and, weighing monetary 
concerns with, careful nicety, coDcluded that if she could get reason- 
ably cheap lodgings she could manage to live, and keep Sydney at 
her studies as a day pupil : so it was determined that she would try 
it instead of separating from her. 

She wrote to Mrs. Hassett, telling her about her plans, and asking 

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a 1 8 The Monks Prophecy. 

her assistanoe in procuring lodgings. She received an answer in ten 
days. Mrs. Hassett apologised for the delay, but she was so occupied 
she had not a moment to herself. She told her she had no chance of 
getting lodgings on the terms she proposed, and that she thought the 
whole scheme rather a foolish one. Girls do so much better when 
completely under the control of their teachers ; boarders are less dis- 
tracted, and haye far more advantages. She herself was just about 
to send Winnie to an English convent. If Mrs. Ormsby took her 
advice, she would place Sydney at the Green ; she would find it much 
less expensive ; for living in Dublin was really something appalling. 

Mrs. Ormsby felt the letter was anything but encouraging or 
friendly ; and she was a gentle-natured woman, that was liable to be 
affected by a blanket that was even damp ; but, like many gentle- 
natured women, her affections and her sense of duty were very strong; 
and they helped her to overcome her sensitiveness. She instinctively 
realised that Mrs. Hassett did not want her as a neighbour in the city, 
and her instinctive reasoning led her to a just conclusion. Mrs. 
Hassett did not want her in the city. She felt that she ought to 
notice her in some way ; and how was she to do so, if she took up her 
abode in shabby lodgh&gs, and turned out in pre- Adamite clothing? 
The widow was puzzled how to manage, when a letter came fran 
Eustace, saying he heard she was looking for apartments. A friend 
of his had passed his examination, and was leaving his rooms ; they 
were comfortable, moderate, and near the convent to which she in- 
tended to send Sydney, and would be vacant in a fortnight. After 
making all necessary inquiries, she desired him to engage them, and 
commenced her preparations for departure. Mrs. Gdie asked her to 
stay with her for a few days, before she went away, and accordingly 
she did so. 

The woods of Hathmoylan were clothed in the beauty of early 
summer. There was a gladness in the air ; a presence, as if of young 
life, waiting impatiently to burst into visible form and colour, and 
make the face of nature fresh and beautiful. The pearly clouds lay 
'tumbled together in soft confusion in the sapphire sky ; the streams 
rushed onward to the great ocean with a joyous murmur; the rooks 
cawed noisely in the swinging tree-tops; and the ancient world lay 
as young and lovely in the sunlight, as on that wondrous day when 
the first of men opened his eyes and gazed with ardent vision on an 
earthly paradise. 

Sydney wandered contentedly about the grand old house and place, 
examining everything, even to the haunted room. Over the chimney- 
piece was the portrait of its former occupant, the unfortunate Charles 
Butler— a pale, dark young face, with sad, earnest eyes, that followed 
the movements of the beholder. His dog was by his side, and he was 
dressed in the elaborate garb of a bygone age. There were many as 

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The MonKs Prophecy. 2 1 9 

handsome faces among those hung in the occupied rooms, but there 
-was a halo of romance and misfortune round this one that captivated 
the fancy of the girl. She turned from the picture to look at things 
in the room that, possibly, those slight, delicate hands had touched. 
There were fancy pictures — ^likely he had chosen them ; old whips 
hung against the wall; a hunting-horn; various articles that had 
never been removed, because of the superstition attaching to the 
chamber. In one recess stood an old Indian cabinet, inlaid with 
coloured wood, and beautifully gilded. Sydney tried to open it, but 
found it was locked ; and, on appealing to Mrs. Gale for knowledge of 
its interior, learned that she never had the key; it was supposed to be 
emptr^ ; there could be nothing of any importance in it ; it was never 
opened since she came to reside in the house. It was the portraits of 
former generations that adorned the waUs of Eathmoylan ; those of 
later times were hung in their English home. 

Occasionally one of the tenants, seeking some personal favour from 
the Earl, went over to England, and returned with glowing descrip- 
tiona of his grandeur there, and of the hospitality and consideration 
with which he was treated. They had all been kind landlords. As 
they had great wealth, they did not feel necessitated to put high rents 
on their lands, and so purchase luxuries by lessening their tenants' 
necessaries. 

Mrs. Gale felt veiy lonely for the loss of the Castleishen family ; 
and Mrs. Ormsby's departure would leave another blank in her circle 
of friends. She had one son, who was married, and a successful 
attorney in the county town ; but she preferred retaining her indepen- 
dent position at Bathmoylan to residing with him. She enjoyed 
having a little occupation, and she was putting by money, that she 
considered would be very acceptable to her grandchildren. 

The days slipped by. They bade farewell to their sorrowful 
hostess, and returned to the Hut. Nellie was to be left in charge of 
it. The few articles of furniture were not worth selling. ** I'll make 
the rent of it with a couple of pigs," said Nellie; "an', as ye are laving 
the little cow, shure, TU have the price of the calf, an' butther, an' 
eggs, an' fowl to send ye up ; — my hand to ye, I'll do well." 

The day came for departure. Nellie sobbed and wept over her 
nurseling, and the weeping widow went out of the tiny, rose-covered 
little home, where she had spent fifteen years of tranquil happiness. 
How pretty and how lonely it looked in the pleasant morning light. 
There seemed to be a sorrowful cadence in the music of the falling 
waters ; and very lonely she felt as she turned away her tear-dimmed 
eyes from that peaceful spot, to walk forth again into the hurrying 
world. She had to think of Winnie Wyndill over and over again, 
and the good prospects of her child, to console her for the loss of those 
who were laid in the quiet grave, and for this painful uprooting. It 



Vol. X., No. 106^ ^ ^ ^ ^ 

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220 The Manias Prophecy. 

was Bad to go ; and yet she felt it would be sadder to remain. Father 
Moran went with them to the station. Sydney clasped her hands 
round his arm, and pressed her wet cheek to his. " Cling to our 
Divine Lord, my child," he said, " and no evil will ever reach you. 
Let your trust in Him never fail." 

He stood looking after them till the train vanished under the 
railway-bridge, and then he slowly returned home. '* They come and 
go, the good and the bad," he said; '' but Thou, Lord, remainest.*' 
He went into the chapel and knelt for some time before the tabemade, 
and then went forth to attend to his business. 

When they arrived in Dublin, they found Eustace waiting for them 
at the Terminus ; he got a cab, looked after the luggage, and in half 
an hour they were seated in their lodgings, qmte prepared to do 
justice to the chops and tea their young escort had thoughtfully 
provided. 

'' Here, Syd, is a pot of your favourite ambrosia," he said, pro- 
ducing a pot of strawberry jam. " I never thought of it till I was 
going to the station. I have invited myself to dinner ; I feel at pre- 
sent as if earthly happiness were enclosed in a mutton chop." 

<'0 Eustace, how glad I was to see you," said Sydney. *^ I felt 
bewildered among all the strange faces. I thought your's was like 
an angel's, when I saw it among the crowd.*' 

'' Your conception of angel's faces are quite false, Syd. Was there 
ever an angelic intelligence could boast of such a promising mustache? 
Isn't it rewarding me for all my care, Mrs. Ormsby ? Am I not grow- 
ing handsomer every day ?" 

Mrs. Ormsby sn^ed, while Sydney assured him he was not im- 
proved at all, and was growing conceited. ''0 Eustace," said the 
girl, '' wouldn't it be hoirible if you became like one of those stupid 
fellows in books, thinking of their dress, and how they looked, and 
talking nonsense ? I'd hate you." 

'^ No, you would not, Syd ; don't use strong language ; you could not 
work yourself up into such a ferocious state of mind. Thank good- 
ness, here are the chops." 

After dinner, Mrs. Ormsby and Eustace talked of himself and their 
friends, far and near. He hoped to pass his examination soon, and 
the moment he had done so he would go out to the Wyndills. He 
spoke of Mrs. Hassett in a sort of desperation : she never had a moment 
to spare, and you would not know on earth what she was doing ; fuss- 
ing about nonsense. She was taken up now about some fancy ball, 
and it was a perfect nuisance to listen to her ; her dress took as much 
thought from her as would solve all the problems in Euclid. Edison 
could not be in greater mental throes over his next invention ending 

'* Well, dear, dress is of great importance to people in society/* 
BaidM».0nn8by. o,,.e..yGoOgle 



The Months Prophecy. 

" Oh, who makes it so but foolish women like Ceurie ? I like to 
see people nicely dressed myself ; but they go to the deuce with it, 
making such guys of themselves, and disgusting guys, too. Don't 
talk of the people on the stage ; I think they are twice as decent as 
the ladies in the boxes. Wait till you see Carrie in all her glory. 
Tm becoming a misanthrope, Mrs. Ormsby; I hate society, parties, 
balls, and everything savouring of civilisation." 

" I should like to go to a party," said Sydney. " I fancy it would 
be lovely." 

"Carrie is giving one next week,'* said the young man, in a 
dubious tone. 

" It is a long time before you can go to a party, Sydney," said her 
mother; ''but we will go to the theatre while the English Opera 
Company is here." 

" What night ?** said Eustace. " I shall get tickets." 

'' No, my dear, I will get them myself," replied Mrs. Ormsby. 

'' Well, you will let me go with you, I suppose; come to-morrow 
night. * Lurline ' is grand. Syd will fancy forever after that water 
spirits are lamenting her in Poulanass." 

"Yery well; come for us to-morrow night|" said Mrs. Ormsby. 
" We shall be very glad of such an escort. I am so unaccustomed to 
the world now, I am as great a child as Sydney." • 

" There will be a promenade concert at the Exhibition after to- 
morrow. You might as well come there, too," he said. 

"No, my dear, we can't go out every night. I hope you don't," 
she said, inquiringly. 

"Well, indeed, I do; almost every night," he replied. ''Th^ 
are always going somewhere or other, if they have no one at home ; 
and one easily falls into the habit of it. I am dead tired of the dty ; 
but it will be more home-Hke now that you are come." 

" I hope you won't be very long in it, Eustace dear; I need not 
counsel you to work hard and gain an independence as quickly as 
you can." 

" I am doing my best," he said. " I am eager to be at a man's 
work, in a new world. If I were well off at home, even, I think I 
could not content myself at present ; I like to tiy my wings in a new 
atmosphere, and see a little of the world ; but I should not mind settling 
down in the ould country in years to come, if any kindly disposed 
person made it worth my while." 

" That would be very good of you," said Sydney. 

" Well, I have an amiable disposition, Syd, and if you meet any 
wealthy old gentleman looking for a worthy heir, mention me, will 
you?" 



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2Z2 The ManUs Prophecy. 



CHAPTER rx. 

LIFE IK THE OITT. 

When Eustace had taken his leave, they examined their rooms 
more carefully. They bore unmistakable evidence of the student 
life they had accommodated. Everything bore the marks of hard 
usage: well- worn moreen-covered furniture, dingy carpets, china 
shepherd and shepherdesses reflected in a very unbecoming looking- 
glass — ^but all were scrupulously clean. A folding-door opened into 
a bedroom, in which were two iron bedsteads. Mrs. Ormsby, who was 
accustomed to circumscribed space in the hut, was pleased to find the 
rooms such a good size. She unpacked her hamper of countiy 
produce, and arranged its contents in an angle press in the sitting- 
room. Mrs. Cosgrai^e, her landlady, a sad-looking woman, middle- 
aged, and rather untidy in her person, came up to know did she 
require anything, and quite allayed any fears her lodger might have 
had on the matter of aggressive landladies. 

In the morning, Sydney was aroused by the clash and clangour of 
bells, and sprang up with a rush of pleasant sensations, that de- 
lighted feeling of being in the midst of the great, full, rushing world, 
which thrills through a young or emotional nature, when one wakes 
in the heart of a city and feels life, sentient, human life, throbbing 
at every side. There muBt be happiness where there is so much 
action and intensity. The girl looked out through both the windows. 
Through the back one she saw the smoke of a train curling in soft 
wreaths, while the shrill Bcream of the whistle smote upon her ear ; 
through the front one she looked out on the streets where already the 
bustle of business was commencing : cars, cabs, and tramcars, were 
in motion ; noise of every description mingled in inextricable confu- 
sion ; and in the midst of all, a city crow hopped and pecked about the 
street as much at home in his disturbing surroundings as his country 
cousins in the lonely woods of Castleishen, 

" mother, it is splendid to be here," said Sydney. I wish Winnie 
Hassett would come to-day : we could have a long walk ; she knows 
every place.*' 

" Sydney, dear, you mustn't expect Winnie to be running with 
you here as in Castleiehen, she is greatly occupied with her studies, 
you know, and you will be equally busy next week ; so you must not 
be disappointed if you do not see her often. You and I will be able 
to explore a great deaL" 

**ril make you walk, mother, until I have seen everything; I did not 
think there was so much in the world as there must be here. I feel 
as if life got suddenly full of music and movement. Ah! dear 
Poulanass, I am sure 'tis singing a sad song this morning." 

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The Monks Prophecy. \ 223 

In the afternoon they went to the convent, and made all arrange 
ments for Sydney's becoming a pupil the following Moiulay. The 
Beverend Mother was pleased with the widow's winning manners, and 
the innocent face of the young girl, and made things as easy as she 
could for her. They went to the shops and procured the necessary 
books and sundry articles of dress, which Mrs. Ormsby's deft fingers 
were to make up into demi-fashionable garb, to hide the too evident 
fact that they were recently from the country. 

That evening Eustace arrived, as had been agreed upon, to bring 
them to the theatre ; he wished to take them to the boxes, but Mrs. 
Ormsby was firm in paying for their tickets, and in being moderate in 
her expenditure, so he was obliged to yield and they were seated in 
the second-circle, watching everything with pleasant interest. In a 
short time they saw Mrs. Hassett enter one of the boxes in striking 
attire and with a costly bouquet in her hand. Her daughter Winnie 
was with her, another lady and gentleman composed the party. 
Mrs. Ormsby looked down at her, and smothered a sigh as it struck 
her what an immeasurable distance there seemed to be between them. 
In the country it could not be brought so forcibly home to her, they 
were on the same natural level there ; but here, in society the oocu- 
pant of the handsome box, gorgeously dressed, with her child beside 
her, swinging her fan in her delicately gloved hands, seemed far 
apart from her in her old-fashioned clothes and country millineiy. 

•* Mother, there is Mrs. Hassett and Winnie," said Sydney ; " does 
not Winnie look sweet? I wish she would look up." 

" Look at the stage now; they are going to raise the curtain;*' 
and Sydney's attention wandered no more. 

They nearly came in contact with Mrs. Hassett's party when they 
were leaving the theatre. Mrs. Ormsby perceived Eustace instinc- 
tively draw back and flush hotly. She looked up and saw Mrs. 
Hassett just descending the last steps of the grand staircase so near, 
tiiat but for Eustace's movement they would have come face to face, and 
so near that Mrs. Ormsby thought she must have seen her. She made 
no sign, however, and went on before them, talking with great 
animation to those around her, until she and her party got into a 
carriage and drove away. 

" Why did you keep me back when I was going to speak to 
Winnie Hassett ?" asked Sydney. 

*'You foolish girl; don't you know you came to the theatre 
•iiA>y.," said Eustace with an embarrassed laugh. ^^ You would not 
care to be seen in your Ulster coat and cap, would you ?" 

''Indeed I should not mind," replied Sydney ; "why should I?" 
and she opened her eyes in astonishment. 

'* You have many things to learn beside your lessons, Syd, and 
one of them is, that ladies going to the imdress circle don't/want to 



224 The Monk's Prophecy. 

be recognieed by their friends in the boxes. Did you not see some 
there closely yeiled, lest the tip of their noses would betray them? 

" Indeed I did ; Vm sure I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't put a veil 
between me and Lurline for all the boxes and people in the world." 

Next day Mrs. Hassett called, rustled up the staircase, and looked 
in the commonplace sitting-room like a gorgeous parrot in the wicker 
cage of a blackbird. Sydney was disappointed, for Winnie did not make 
her appearance ; she had some other engagement. After some desultory 
conversationf Mrs. Hassett said : *' It must put you out very much 
coming to town. Will you remain long ? '' 

'' I will remain for six months, at all events, and possibly all the 
time Sydney will require at school." 

'^ Dear me, and you were teaching her so well yourself. You will 
find it very expensive. I suppose you hear still from Winnie 
Wyndilir 

"Yes; I hear from her constantly." 

'* You and she were always great friends, but I wonder she has 
time ; I know I never have a moment. How lucky she w€is ! Fancy 
her a Gk)vemor*s wife ; such a position is almost thrown away upon 
such a quiet, easy-going person." 

*' I think she is just the person to fill it worthily," said Mrs. 
Ormsby ; ** she will make herself beloved and respected ; and she who 
wins love and respect is not out of place in any position." 

'* Oh, I don't mean to say she is out of place ; but I daresay she 
would be just as content in Oastleishen." 

'' She does not place her happiness in external things," replied 
Mrs. Ormsby. " She has a large and a loving heart, and would be 
satisfied anywhere with those she loves." 

" Those externals are veiy necessary, for all that ; 'tis only those 
who have them without an effort, or those who can't attain them at 
all, that go in for such lofty indifference. My goodness, how late it 
is ! — and I have several other visits to pay. You will come and dine 
with us some evening, and Sydney, of course ; — ^my young people will 
be glad to meet her again." 

'' I am sure Sydney would like to see them," said Mrs. Ormsby. 

"I unfortunately have engagements for the next week or tea 
days," continued Mrs. Hassett; <* but after that I will fix a day and 
let you know. Gk)od-bye ;— don't trouble yourself to WMne down; 
good-bye." And gathering up her silken train, she took her departure. 

"Mother, is not Mrs. Hassett very disagreeable?" said Sydney, 
when the carriage rolled away. *' I don't like her at all ; I hope you 
won't dine there." 

" I don't know yet, dear," replied her Jmother. " I think if we do 
we want new dresses." 

On examining the blackjgrenadine] which had beea her only 

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The Months Prophecy. ^^^ 

erening dress for several years, she shook her head raef ully, and oon- 
dnded it would be a dangerous experiment to test Mrs. Hassett's 
organisation by appearing in it at her dinner-table. With sundry 
misgiyings she bought a black silk dress for herself, and a white 
muslin one for Sydney. She intended to accept the invitation, not 
becanse of any personal pleasure to be derived from it, but for 
Sydney's sake ; besides she was a woman who was influenced by old 
associations. It required incontrovertible fact to destroy her belief 
in old faiths, and old illusions. She did not depend much on Mrs. 
Hassett ; instinctively she felt she was not to be trusted ; yet she 
shrank from admitting even to herself, 'that the fashionable woman 
of the world was quite indifferent to her and Sydney^she who had 
been so intimate with and so beloved by all the family ; — and then it 
was such a disadvantage to the young girl not to have someone of 
her own class to associate with. It would be lonely for her ; she 
might feel slighted; it was better to keep on with the Hassetts, even 
though the lady*s manners were not calculated to produce pleasur- 
able sensations in those acquaintances who had to walk on lower levels. 
Sydney was attending school before the promised invitation came, 
and, having forgotten Mrs. Hassett's disagreeable mode of expression, 
she was quite delighted at the proposal of seeing her companions 
again. From the way in which she had been brought up, she was 
singularly innocent and utterly ignorant of the complex ways of the 
world : there were no social competitions, no rivalries, no delicate 
shades of caste in Oastleishen to awake her sensitiveness. No one 
reflected on her and she reflected on no one. There was little self- 
oonsdousness in her. If Mrs. Hassett were disageeable, she attri- 
buted such manifestation to some peculiarity in the lady which she 
did not dream of analysing. It never occurred to her as possible that 
%ks was acting on the aforesaid ladjr's temperament, and that the 
manifestations were specially meant to impress her with a proper 
aenee of her inferiority. 

When the evening arrived, Mrs. Ormsby and Sydney drove to Mrs. 
Hassett's, and entered that sanctuaiy for the firsfc time. When 
they had returned her visit previously she was out, as they were in 
ignorance of the fact that she had an " At home day." When they 
leached the drawing-room, the hostess, in all the pomp and circum- 
stance of an elaborate toilet, received them with great suavity and 
forbearance, while Mr. Hassett was quite cordial. The dinner was 
veiy grand, though the guests were few. There was every appear- 
ance of wealth ; and Mrs. Ormsby thought of the amount of hard 
brain work it took to pay for all this luxury. Mrs. Hassett treated 
her with aU the politeness and attention due to a guest : there was no 
familiarity, no private chat, and when the widow returned home 
that night, she entirely realised that she was unnecessary^4o Mrs. 

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226 The Monks Prophecy. 

Hassett's well-being. The woman of tlie world merely tolerated her ; 
her eyes were too accustomed to the blaze of sooiety to recognise 
objects in the darkness of obscurity, and Mrs. Ormsby felt it was 
useless to try to keep on with her. Her prophetic intuitions were 
proved correct by time. Mrs. Hassett's visits were angelic in their 
occurrence ; and, as the months rolled away, they almost died out. 

However, in not unpleasing monotony the time wore on. Sydney 
became absorbed in her school life, and her mother managed and 
counted cost, weighing carefully the capabilities of every sixpence 
before she laid it out. How she wished she could earn a little money 
just as much even as would take off the strain, the necessity for the 
interminable mental process of calculation; and the never-ending 
attempt to make sixpence be as productive in its results as a shilling. 
Money makes unto itself wings, and in six months she found every- 
thing combined had helped the pinions of what to her was a con- 
siderable simi. 

One of the few with whom she had established friendly relations 
was Mrs. Barry, her laundress, a cheerful, middle-aged woman, who 
was recommended by Eustace MacMahon. Her visits on Monday and 
Saturday were welcomed by the widow, as the visits of one whom she 
could trust. One morning she was mending a piece of old lace, when 
Mrs. Barry entered. " 'Tis well for you, ma'am, to be able to do it so 
grandly,'' she said. " I'd make a little fortune if I could do it." 

** 1 wish I could make one, Mrs. Barry," replied the widow, '* and 
I would begin to-day." 

" lyeh, a lady like you would be above making it that way, ma'am, 
if you could itself." 

'' Indeed I would not," said Mrs. Ormsby. ''I wish I had any 
honest way of making a little money." 

** 'Deed, then, you could make it by the lace for certain, ma'am. 
I am often asked to do it by the ladies 1 washes for, but I doesn't 
know how ; an' 'tisn't easy to trust valuable laces to everyone. I 
tore a piece myself this week, an' I don't know in the world what to 
do with it." 

"Bring it to me, Mrs. Barry, and I will mend it for you, with 
pleasure." 

Mrs. Barry did so ; the lace was mended to her perfect satisfac- 
tion, and it came to pass that the washerwoman found occasional 
work for the lady : trifling, no doubt, to those who take large views 
of monetary matters, but quite sufficient to raise the widow's spirits, 
and give her a feeling of positive usefulness. It is a certain fact that 
no recognition of our work, bodily or mental, is so satisfactory as 
getting so much money for it ; being paid is the proof that we are 
worthy to be paid. A youngjauthor giving his productions to papers 
for nothing argues meorely a ^disposition to behold himself in print ; 

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The Monk* s Prophecy. 227 

when those productions enable him to open an account at his banker's, 
his friends and acquaintances become much more appreciative of his 
talent ; and nothing gives such an impetus to a young worker's genius 
and necessary self-confidence, as that tangible, pleasant proof of his 
ability — a cheque. 

The months passed. Nellie used to send an occasional hamper of 
country produce, swelled to a respectable size by Father Moran ; but, 
still, the widow found it hard enough to make ends meet, and she began 
to wonder would her little store of pound-notes be sufficient to keep 
Sydney the allotted term at school. She had to draw some of it 
occasionally for other expenditure. She got a slight cold which ren- 
dered her nervous and depressed ; and a letter from Mrs. Wyndill, in 
which she said she had not been well, and was still delicate, added to 
that depression. 

What would become of Sydney if she died ? And if Mrs. Wyndill 
failed her? — that was the thought for ever haunting her — she would be 
left friendless in the world, with a few pounds a year until she was 
twenty-one, and then nothing. She was utterly alone. '* The poor 
make no new friends," she would think. What could Sydney do to 
help herself? Her teachers were pleased with her progress. She 
was getting on very fairly. Still, she realised that girls who make 
quite a brilliant display in society, and are highly educated, as the 
phrase goes, are wholly incompetent to earn their bread. Alas ! how 
she shrank from having her soft-natured, beautiful child exposed to 
the rough ways of the working world. She was not either by disposi- 
tion or culture fitted for it ; it was as easy to deceive her as a little 
child who takes all things for what they seem. 

The mother's mind became almost morbid with anxiety. She 
began to dislike the visits of Eustace, though no two could be more 
like broths and sister in their frank relations, than he and Sydney. 
The last time she and Mrs. Hassett had met (now some months ago), 
she perceived by her manner that her sense of prudence was aroused. 
She was elaborately expressive of surprise at the frequency of his 
yisits, and took occasion, apropos of some other unwise individual, to 
comment on the danger of familiar intercourse between two young 
people, when there was no possibility of marriage. It was only her 
sense of duty made her go out to walk with Sydney ; she liked to go 
by lonely ways, where the severity of her style of dress would not 
come in contact with excessive contrasts, and where she would be 
unlikely to meet Mrs. Ha^set, who, more than once, was wilfully 
oblivious of her proximity. She lay awake at night, Uiinking, pray- 
ing, calculating, sending up passionate cries to God to save Mrs. 
Wyndill, and to spare her own life imtil she saw her child with a 
friend, who would shield her from the coldness of the world. 

Sydney was growing more lovely every day, and the attention she 



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228 The Monies Prophecy. 

attracted in the streets was a cause of alarm to her sensitive mother. 
The girl's veiy imconsciousness pained her, and made her question the 
wisdom of leaying her so innocent. Would it not have been better to 
make her aware that there was falseness, and deceit, and sin under 
the fairest appearances, and so prepare her lest they touch the white- 
ness of her life ? Over and over again she examined her past mode of 
acting, though she had only the one conclusion to draw — that there 
was no other way she could have acted with a better result. If she 
had continued on at the Hut, she would have been in nowise better off 
if she died. Sydney could not have existed there on the pittance 
which would have been her's. No ; Mrs. Wyndill, if (Jod spared her, 
was her one hope ; if another year was past, they might be going out 
to her. 

Sydney knew nothing of the inner workings of her mother^s mind; 
for her mother was anxious not to have a saddening influence on her. 
and she made an effort to be cheerful before her. It is an easy 
thing to make youth happy ; and Sydney was oblivious that care and 
Borro w were possibilities in her futura She loved the nuns, and en- 
joyed her school life. They had a pleasant walk in the evenings, and 
Eustace often came to see them, and despite Mrs. Ormsby's denials, 
insisted in taking them to some place of amusement ; so with youth's 
joyous, instinctive relish for the present moment, Sydney extracted 
happiness from all things surrounding her, and was repressed by no 
regrets for the past, or fears about the on-coming years. 

Some time after her arrival she made the acquaintance of the land- 
lady's daughter, Julia Oosgrave. Mrs. Ormsby wanted some hot 
water, and Sydney went down to the kitchen to procure it. A very 
pretty, dark-eyed girl was ironing some dainty cuffs and collars at the 
table. 

'' You ought to iron my caps, Julia, as your hand is in," said Mrs. 
Oosgrave. 

" Can't you do them yourself, instead of reading them old novels?** 
was the answer. 

"Old novels!" said Mrs. Oosgrave, " they're the only amusement 
I have, and I here all day by myself ; — ^veiy little of your company you 
give me.*' 

" *TLb a pity I don't spend my few hours' liberty listening to you 
grumbling about father," answered the girl, « after my hard day. 
'Twas a great compliment to get out early to-day. I told the walker 
I had a toothache." She put down her iron as she perceived Sydney 
standing at the door. *• Can I do anything for you. Miss ?" she 
asked. 

" I wanted some hot water," replied Sydney. ** Don't let me dis- 
turb you ; I'll hold the jug, and Mrs. Oosgrave will pour it out for me. 
How useful you are ! ' Uave you not made up your things beautifully l" 

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The Monk's Prophecy. 229 

'' I must have them nice at my place of business/' said the girl, 
*' but washing and ironing spoils one's hands so." 

" It has not spoiled yours," answered Sydney, looking at the girl's 
hands, which were pretty atid white. 

" They are not so bad," said the girl, stretching them out, «' but 
they are red now from the heat of the iron. If you saw the hands I 
have to fit sometimes. Miss, you would long to have nice ones — so big 
and horrid vulgar. You have sweet ones ; — sizes would fit you, Pm 
sue." 

*• Are you in a glove shop?" asked Sydney. 

" I am at present," answered the girl. 

" She is always changing from one thing to another," said Mrs. 
Gosgrave, " and no good ever comes of going on that way. I tell her, 
she'll be| sorry she didn't stick to one place, when it will be too late ; 
but she must have her way." 

•* I never get a place I like," replied JuKa. " K I did, maybe I'd 
stop in it. Where do you get your gloves. Miss Ormsby ? I'd like to 
fit you." 

'*! don't often get a new pair," said Sydney ; '' mamma buys them 
wherever she likes." 

** And you do everything your mother likes, bacause you are a nice 
young lady," said Mr8.Gosgrave, taking occasion to give a moral lesson 
to her daughter by an implied contrast. *' I hear you laughing together 
at night." 

•• Well, I am not a nice young lady," replied Julia, pertly, " and I'd 
be a good many nights at home before I'd have anything to make me 
laugh, except at the wrong side of my mouth." 

Sydney perceived the unpleasantness without quite comprehending 
it; and, taking the jug of water, she said : " Thank you, Mrs. Gos- 
gzare, I'll cany it up myself." With a bright smile she bade them 
good-bye ; and, as she went up stairs, she heard Mrs. Cosgrave's com- 
plaining voice and Julia's sharp, half-laughing retort. 

{To he continued.) 



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( ^30 ) 



NEW BOOKS. 

I. The Confederation of Kilkenny. By tlie Rev. 0. P. Meshait. New 
Edition. (Dublin: Duffy & Sons, 1882.) 

The youtM ul Editor of the Nation, in the hey-day of its fame, dedi* 
cated his celebrated *' Ballad Poetry of Ireland" to Thomas O'Hagan, 
Q.C., ''in earnest admiration of his heart, his intellect, and his prin- 
ciples;" and when, some thirty years later, the ex- editor, who had 
meanwhile become Premier of Victoria, was asked by the publisher 
to superintend the fiftieth edition of the same little book, he repeated 
the original dedication on the plea that, in all his varied experience in 
the interim, he had found no truer or worthier friend. We have been 
reminded of this edifying fidelity by seeing Sir Charles Gavan Duffy 
himself experience a similar fate at the hands of the Rev. Charles 
Patrick Meehan.- His history of " The Confederation of Kilkenny'' 
was one of the last volumes of that " Library of Ireland," which was 
really inaugurated by the famous " Ballad Poetry," though M'Nevin's 
" Irish Volunteers," was nominally volume the first. The new edition 
just issued begins with these words addressed to the Hon. Sir C. G. 
Duffy : " Dear friend, after an interval of thirty-six years, I avail of 
your permission to re- dedicate to you this volume." 

Father Meehan has shown fidelity of another kind, in devoting 
himself for so many years to the elucidation of Irish history, studied 
with the spirit which must animate a faithful Irish priest. But 
we do not feel justified in adopting the tone frequently taken by 
reviewers, who imply that such writers make a great sacrifice by 
devoting themselves to Irish subjects. Their toils may be ill rewarded 
in a conmiercial sense ; yet even in that way they succeed better than 
if they addressed the world at large instead of a special audience ; and 
they have other rewards. 

Many and valuable extensive additions have been made to the 
original work. One which will catch the eye most is the frontispiece — 
the portrait and autograph of Hinuccini, of which an authentic copy 
was transmitted to Father Meehan by the Nunzio's twelfth successor 
in the see of Fermo. Twelve episcopal careers seem few to fill 
up more than two hundred years. Have there been only twelve 
bishops of Dromore between Oliver Darcy, the Dominican Friar, who 
(Father Meehan tells us) died Bishop of Dromore in 1670, and his 
present living successor in that see, another member of that same 
illustrious Order, which was never more firmly rooted in the soil of 
Ireland and in the heart of Ireland than now ?* 

* The man who has done most to rerif j thii asMriion would, while linng, have a 
right to complam of the ingratitude which b generally reser?ed for the illustrious 

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New Books. 231 

We are glad to add that a oopiouB index has been fumiBhed, 
to save us trouble in finding our way among the treasures of minute 
and varied learning stored up in the text and notes. In the new ap- 
pendix the author of the '' Flight of the Earls " has received graceful 
aid from Denis Florence McCarthy's skill in metrical translation, and 
from the marvellous genealogical lore of Father Shearman of Howth. 

II. Stephanie. By Louis Vbxjillot. Translated from the French by 

Mrs. Josephine Black. (Dublin : M. H. Gill & Son, 1882.) 

To secure attention for this excellent translation of an excellent book, 
we confine ourselves at present to two simple expedients. The first is 
to establish a *' solidarity" between the translator and Mis8 Josephine 
Macatday, already favourably known as an original writer and as a 
translator. The other expedient is to transcribe the brief preface : — 

"This 18 the first English translation of a Terj successful tale bj one of the most 
famous of Frenoki Catholic writers, 

" So good a judge as the late Father Faber says, in one of his private letters : — * I 
know of no writer so thoroughly Christian as Louis Yeuillot. It is this which 
so makes me delight in his books. The Terj loye-story in Cd ^^ Zd is so intensely 
Christian. It oozes out like blood from a living man : it is not trotted out, nor 
consciously expressed. 80 withthe Paffum de Rome: its very nonsense, and wit, and 
fun are indelibly Christian.' — Hfe and Letters, p. 497. 

" The writer of these few words of preface spent some years among Frenchmen, 
and used to make inquiries about French tales which were harmless without being too 
silly. One of his friends gave him the original of this book as among the very best of 
its kind. It has gone through many editions ; and to the later editions M. Yeuillot 
has prefixed an Introduction, giving an account of the circumstances under which it 
waf written, and which form a pleasant story in themselves. 

** To the newspaper world Louis Yeuillot is known as a most vigorous and trenchant 
journalist, the famous editor of the Univers, resembling Frederick Lucas more than 
any other public man in these countries. But he has, besides, a high place in the 
literary world ; and even his bitterest enemies — he is too 'outspoken and too Roman 
not to have enemies in France — concede to him the possession of an exquisite fresh- 
ness and originality of style. 

III. The Meart of Jetus of Natareth : Meditations on the Sidden Life, 
(London : Civil Service Printing and Publishing Company, 1881.) 

We snspect this holy book has itself been too much devoted to a hidden 
life, whereas our Lord would bid it allow its light to shine before men. 
To be sure, it is not long in existence, but even for its time it ought to 
have found its way to more of the hearts to which its very name would 
be an attraction. Some of these were interested in a series of medi- 
tations on the subject some ten years ago in the Messenger of the Sacred 
Heart, then edited by the late Father WiUiam Maher. It was he who 

dead, if the Irish people and priesthood, all the world over, did not eagerly grasp at 
the opportunity now offered of contributing towards the erection of a suitable Church 
for the Dominican Priory of Tallaght, in the Dublin mountains, which is the home of 
Father Thomas Burke. 



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232 New Books. 

counselled their republication with the addition of ten meditalions 
which make the volume in its present form a complete '^ Month of the 
Sacred Heart/' of a somewhat novel kind. The reflections are very 
spiritual, and by no means commonplace. As a solid theological intro- 
duction, an essay of some thirty close pages on Devotion to the 
Sacred Heart is prefixed, translated here for the first time from the 
Jesuit theologian, Cardinal Franzelin. (Then follow thirty meditations 
on such subjects as the grandeur of tlieEGiddenLife, its meaning and pur- 
pose, its utility, its happiness, its occupations, its sufferings, its loneli- 
ness, its humiliations, its silence, its obedience, its mortifications, its 
joy, its tranquillity and peace, &c. Others of the meditations propose 
the Hidden Life as the model of our preparation for heroic action, or 
consider it as reproduced in the Blessed Sacrament, in the contempla- 
tive orders, and in hidden souls. And then, after discussing the means 
for acquiring the spirit of the hidden life, the two last meditations of 
aU are on the recompense of the hidden life in sorrow and at death, 
and in eternity. 

In the next edition, the title-page ought to be simplified by reserv- 
ing sundiy particulars for the preface, and we ought at least to be told 
that the author is an English Oarmelite. The excessive use of italics 
will show that that name is used in its French gender — ^not " Oarme," 
but ''Oarm61ite." Moreover, if it hailed from Sackville-street, or 
Portman-street, it would be more likely to be disturbed from the hidden 
life to which its present unusual and impersonal address might help to 
consign it. 



MISPRINTS IN " A CHAT ABOUT MONTREAL." 

A 8BBIB8 of mischftDces have combined to leave uncorrected seTeral grave mistakes in 
the pleasant paper named aboye. The grayest of these, or rather the most ludicrous, 
occurs in page 211, line 15. "Lots of gaming" is the compositor's ingenious version 
of the Canadian amusement called '* tobogganing " — a word which we faaye sought in 
Tain, eren in American dictionaries, but which means, we belieye, sliding down a frosen 
decliyity, while seated with another in ^ peculiar kind of sleigh that is dexterously 
piloted by one of the adventurous voyagers. 

In the fifth line of the same page, ''movements *' should be "moments," and the 
seventh line from the foot ought to speak of " a vista of snow-laden trees." The pen- 
ultimate paragraph of the whole article was meant to end with "endless tracts of 
untrodden country beyond the city, stretching out solemn and silent under the snow.** 

The catalogue of errors in that luckless proof -sheet is not yet exhausted. Can the 
same be said of our newest contributor's powers of forgiveness ? 



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( 333 ) 



O'OONNELL: 

HIS DIABT FROM 1 792 TO l802, AlTD LETTESS 
NOW FOR TBB FIBflT TIME FUBLI8HBD. 

PabtI. 

n'CONNELL ! What hifitorical name of the nineteenth centuiy can 
^ xiral this name^in the extent and degree of its fame, real fame P 
Even those who refuse to love and revere O'Connell's memory give 
liim the tribute, at least, of their wonder. No matter how much the 
Btoiy of Ireland may be condensed^-even to a mere paragraph contain- 
ing a few names and dates — ^two of those names, inseparably linked 
with her own, must always be St. Patrick and O'Connell. 

Mr. Morgan O'ConneU, the eldest surviving son of the Liberator, 
lias with Tory great kindness authorised the publication in this Maga- 
zine of many most interesting letters and papers of his illustrious 
father, which strangely enough have hitherto escaped publicity. That 
they have done so may partly be accounted for by the circumstance 
that no biography of O'ConneU has yet appeared under the auspices of 
the (yConnell family, except the two volumes of his ''life and 
Speeches," which John O'Connell compiled in 1846, when, of course, 
during his father's lifetime, many of the most interesting materials 
ooold not be used. 

As we are thus so fortunate as to be privileged to give, for the first 
time, many circumstances of O'Connell's career, and many of his 
thoughts as recorded by himself, we shall introduce them also in an 
autobiographical form by stating the earlier facts of his life, and as 
far as possible in his own words. 

'* I was bom," (he, wrote to a newspaper in 1828, as we find it quoted 
in Miss Cusack's "Life "), *' on the 6th of August, 1776, the very year in 
which the stupid obstinacy of British oppression forced the reluctant 
people of America to seek security in arms, and to commence that 
bloody struggle for independence, which has been in its results bene- 
ficial to England, while it has shed gloiy and conferred liberty on 
America." 

Writing in the beginning of 1841 to the Belfast Vindicator, which a 
clever lad from Monaghan, called Oharles Duffy (afterwards to be 
heard of), had just established, O'Connell gives us another bit of auto- 
biography : 

Vok X. No. 107, May, 1882. 18 

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334 



O'ConnelL 



*^ I am the son of a sainted mother, who watched over my childhood 
with the most faithful care. She was of a high order of intellect, and 
what little I possess was bequeathed me by her. I may, in fact, say 
without vanity, that the superior situation in which I am placed by my 
countrymen has been owing to her. Her last breath was passed, I 
thank heaven, in calling down blessings on my head ; and I valued 
her blessing since. In the dangers to which I have been exposed 
through life, I have regarded her blessing as an angel's shield over 
me ; and as it has been my protection in this life, I look forward to it 
also as one of the means of obtaining hereafter a happiness greater than 
any this world can give." 

''It is not death alone, but time and death that canonise the 
patriot" Time and death have already gone far towards canonising 
O'Connell, even for those who, when he was living, would, be more 
disposed to act in his regard the part of devil's advocate— to pick out 
as many flaws as possible in his character and to discover or invent 
mistakes and weaknesses. Among the mean sneers that once were 
fashionable, some " scribbling anonymuncles " of the London Press 
pretended to disparage the social standing of O'Connell's family 
and ancestors. Even if this were true, if the mighty Tribune were a 
iMfm% homo and the first of his race, this would but enhance the brilli- 
ancy of his career. Yet, according to the Archbishop of Cashel, it was 
fortunate that it was far otherwise. In the Centenary Sermon at the 
Marlborough-street Cathedral, Dr. Oroke said that 0*Connell *' knew, 
and no man knew it better, that the Irish Celt is of his nature, ardent 
and excitable, nighly sympathetic, daring, devoted, and generous. He 
loves the green fields, the groves, the streamlets, the rushing rivers, 
except one, the mountains, the old ruins, the songs, the sacred shrines, 
the romantic traditions — and most of all, perhaps, after the old family 
rooftree, the graveyards and the battlefields of his country. A real Irish 
chieftain seen in the flesh, and not simply read of in stoiy, of imposing 
stature, noble presence, and warlike mien — the living representative 
of an ancient sept that took an equal part in smiting the Dane and 
shaking the ascendancy of the Saxon, would for him have singular 
fascinations." O'Connell would not have exercised the same fascina- 
tion that he did if he had lacked any of the qualities that he possessed. 
Of another popular leader of our day, or ratilier of a day that is over, 
it was said that his influence with the people would have been greater 
if he had been less of a Smith, and more of an O'Brien. O'Connell 
was— O'Connell ! 

It is no part of our plan to copy, from sources already published, 
the genealogies which give the ancestors and ancestresses of the 
O'Connells of Darrinane for many centuries. The point now alluded 
to is abundantly proved by the unpublished letters at present in our 
hands, from the year 1740 onwards, the very style and handwriting of 

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0*ConnelL 335 

which, especially at that date, evince the high social position of the 
writers ; and the same is evidenced by the tone in which the Knight 
of Kerry of that day addresses the contemporary 0*Connell. It is a 
mysteiy how this sturdy Catholic sept managed to hold their lieads so 
high among the gentry of the kingdom of Kerry in spite of the iniqui- 
tous grinding persecution of the Penal Laws. For instance, when the 
future Liberator was a little boy four years old, these are the terms 
in which his uncle Maurice answers a letter of Bobert Fitzgerald, 
Knight of Kerry. The Knight's letter will be given hereafter. 

" Darrinane, lOth February, 1780. 
" Dbab Sib, 

** I am extremely happy to hear by your favour of the first instant, that you 
are well, and I assure you there is not am'ong your many friends one who more sin- 
cerely wishes you an uninterrupted continuance of happiness and prosperity. 

** I have had Jermyn to view the mountain of Drung, but could not at that time 
attend myself, owing to a cold which confined me. The enclosed billet, being a copy 
of one he left with me, will let you see his estimate and also give you some idea of his 
plan. His line forming a sweep round the mountain must undoubtedly not only take 
off the present enormeous pinch, but render the whole much easier and more conve- 
nient for carriages. The sum mentioned is indeed heavy : but still I perfectly agree 
that the work should be executed in a style of solidity and durability which caunot be 
expected without an adequate expense. Nothing on my part shall be wanting to pro- 
mote 80 useful a work ; but it rests entirely with you to set on and give success to the 
subscription, the aid of which will be indispensably necessary. 

" The observations you make with respect to the barony of Iveragh are very just. 
It is very much to be wished that the land be purged of outlaws and vagabonds, and 
not only that, but that it should possess some little force which may be the means of 
repelling the pillaging attempts of scampering privateers. You were in the country 
when Paul Jones was off the coast. Had he taken it into his head to land with only 
twenty men, might he not have plundered and burned the whole barony, naked and 
defenceless as it was, without arms for ten men. From end to end of it the terror of 
he inhabitants exceeded all powers of description. 

'* The very distinguished services of the armed Volunteer corps are universally known, 
and gratefully acknowledged through the whole kingdom ; and I am fully convinced 
that the Roman Ca'tbolic gentlemen of Iveragh would readily unite with their Protes- 
tant neighbours, as you say, to form a corps, did they think that such a measure 
would meet the approbation of the legislature. They would, in common with every 
Boman Catholic of standing in Ireland, be exceedingly happy by every possible 
exertion to give additional weight, strength, and security to the kingdom. But, then, 
what can they do while the laws of their country forbid them the use of arms ? Under 
suoh circumstances I look upon it to be their duty to confine themselves to the line of 
conduct which the legislature has marked out for them, and with humility and resig- 
nation to wait for a further relaxation of the laws, which a more enlightened and 
liberal way of thinking, added to a clearer and more deliberate attention to the real 
interest and prosperity of the kingdom, will, I hope, soon bring about. 

'* I have the honour to be, &c., 

" MauRICX O^COHIIELL." 

The little four-year-old nephew of the writer of this letter, bold 
and high-spirited for the time, was destined to show the Catl^olios of 

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336 G^Connell. 

Ireland that the " humility and resignation,'* here inculcated, oould 
be carried too far and might sink into cowardice and sloth. 

To reach 0*Connell*B unpublished diary and letters the sooner, it 
seems prudent to disregard chronological order, and to hold over one 
or two curious letters written thirty years before he was bom. 

In 1788 Daniel O'Connell, with his brother Maurice, who was then 
twelve years old, (a year younger than himself), was sent to a school 
kept at Cove (to be called long afterwards Queenstown), by a Father 
Harring^n ; but the next year* they were sent to finish their educa- 
tion on the continent. As St. Omer's was once a college of the Society 
of Jesus, the Jesuits are believed by many to have been O'Oonnell's 
teachers. That glory was denied them, though this was the wish euid 
plan of all concerned. A little before this the Jesuits had removed 
from St. Omer's to Li6ge ; and to liege the two O'Connells went. If 
the good Fathers had foreseen the destiny that awaited the eldest of the 
lads, they might have stretched a point to admit him in spite of his hav- 
ing passed the age for entrance into the Ck)llege. They were thus 
kept waiting for six weeks at Louvain till fresh instructions could come 
from home. 

At this point Mr. John O'Connell contrasts his father's studious 
employment of his unwilling leisure with the lighter conduct of his 
younger brother. Maurice himself tells a different story in a letter 
which we copy here from the brown old dishevelled sheet of paper, 
now ninety years old : — 

<< Mr DBAB TJnclb, 

** I reoeived your affectionate letter of the 22nd ult., and take the first oppor- 
tunity of answering it The letter which came to your hands last month was, I assure 
you, giyen by me to the President on the 29th or 30th of October, who said he would 
write some lines in the end of it, which, until I reoei?ed yours, I thought he had done, 
and also sent you the college bill and his directions. For our coUege duties I refer 
you to the letter Dan wrote you on the 5th of December. When I wrote first, I was 
not acquainted with them. Our route from Louvain to Ostend you have seen in the 
directions given us in Cork. The expense was about two guineas each. fVom Ostend 
we came to Jurens, from thence to Dunkirk, from thenoe to this town : the expense 
two pounds, ten shillings, each. We attended the University schools whilst at 
Lourain, and had recourse to the library of the Dominicans (to whom we had letters), 
who were very dril to us, as also were the Franciscans. I should have mentioned 
these circumstances before, if I thought you would have been pleased with it I hope 
you will have no cause to be offended with me for the future. I assure yon, my dear 
uncle, the ties of gratitude, duty, and affection, bind me too dose to you, that I should 
willingly give you the least pain, and I find myself very unhappy at being the cause of 
your past trouble. I hope our future conduct will be such as to merit your entire 

* So John O^Connell says (vol. t., page 6). But the first year the O'Connells 
spent at St. Omer's was 1792, when Daniel was 17 years old ; therefore he must have 
been more than thirteen when sent to Mr. Harrington, or he must hare spent more 
than one year at the Irish school before being removed to the continent 

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(yConnelL 337 

approbation. The hope of giviog you BatiBfaction will be a greater inducement to our 
labouring to fulfil our college duties than the profit arieing to ourtelves thereby. >Ve 
are all obliged to speak French; our regulations are well observed, and our liying 
suiBcientlj good. Give my duty to my grandmother, father and mother, my love to 
my brothers and sisters, and to all other friends. 

^ I remain, my dear Uncle, 

" Your grateful and dutiful nephew, 

"Maurice O'CoHNiLL. 
" at. Omet^Sy Jamutry 17 th, 1792." 

This letter is folded up in the old, old style, and addressed to 
" Maurice O'Connell, Esq., Darrinane, near Tralee, Keny, Ireland." 
Another letter, dated the following fifth of March, reports that ** we 
both continue in very good health. Dan joins me in my duty to 
my grandmother, father and mother, and in love to all other friends." 
Mark here the reverential distinction between love and filial duty. 

The letter we have printed was accompanied by a few lines from 
the President of the College, Dr. Stapleton, who ends with these pro- 
phetic words : '* With respect to the elder brother, Daniel, I have but 
one sentence to write about him, and that is, that I never was so much 
mistaken in my life as I shall be unless he be destined to make a re- 
markable figure in society." 

Dr. Stapleton's vezy striking testimony to young Dan O'Connell's 
promise as a schoolboy is corroborated by another excellent witness — 
O'Oonnell himself. He said once, to O'Neill Daunt, " I was in child- 
hood remarkably quick and persevering. My childish propensity to 
idleness was overcome by the fear of disgrace : I desired to excel and 
could not brook the idea of being inferior to others." 

Owing partly to the disturbances on the continent, the brothers 
came home from their exile in Artois in the last days of the year 1793, 
starting for Calais on the 21st of December, the day that Louis 
XTL was beheaded at Paris. This brings us down veiy near to 
the date of O'ConneU's first diazy which we are now going to print for 
the first time. 

In 1792 the exertions of the Catholics, under the leadership of John 
Keogh, whose name ought to be held in popular remembrance, pro- 
cured certain relaxations in the penal laws, and amongst the rest it 
was made lawful for Catholics to practise at the Bar. We should be 
curious to know how many of the Catholic youth of Ireland had 
availed themselves of this new privilege before O'Connell. In 1794 
he became a law student, not in Dublin, but, according to an atrocious 
piece of centralisation, which is still partly kept up, at Lincoln's Inu 
in London. A journey to London was a greater hardship and a 
heavier tax in those days than it is at present. 

O'Connell's first London lodging was at a Mr. Tracy's, in a court off 
Coventry-street ; but he soon removed to Mrs. Higby*s, in Chiswick, 
for in the first entry in his diary he speaks of losing time by coming 



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338 aCannell. 

to town in order to take part in the proceedings of a certain Debating 
Society. This must apply rather to Chiswick than to Coventry-street. 
Kg date is prefixed to the first entry of the Diary ; but the second is 
dated, as we shall see, *' December 11th, 1795," when O'Connell was 
twenty years of age. 

O'Connell's Diaky, 1795-1802. 

I met De Yignier to-day. He is about to go off to San Domingo, 
and told me that the emancipated French Negroes were tired of 
liberty ; that they wished for, nay, called for, their ancient slavery. I 
will not detail the causes which, according to him, have stirred up this 
unnatural hatred of freedom in the bosoms of men who certainly 
experienced few of the sweets of Despotism : I have nonsense enough 
of my own. 

I have almost entirely lost this day owing to my being in town. I 
believe it will be better for me to attend the society no longer. It is 
true that I there acquire a great fluency of speech, but the loss of time 
and money which my attendance occasions makes me conceive it pre- 
ferable to go there no more. I sent off a letter to my father by this 
day's post, and am now going to finish one I have already commenced, 
to John. 

Friday, Leeemler llth, 1795. — I went to bed last night at a quarter 
after twelve and did not get up this morning until five minutes after 
eleven. I remain in general too long in bed ; this I must endeavour to 
correct. It is a custom equally detrimental to the constitution and to 
the mind; it destroys the vigour and energy of the one, and prevents, 
by its consumption of time, the other from acquiring the strength 
which information inspires. 

Bower, the attorney, got me served with a copy of a writ for the 
amoimt of Eugene Mac Carthy's bill. I owe this to my own negligence. 
I have the bill for near six weeks, always resolved to send it off with- 
out delay, and still it remains as yet unsent. I remark a great deal of 
neglect, or at least a dilatoriness, which seems a constitutional failing 
of mine. I must endeavour to be more than usually active for some 
time to come in order to get rid of this bad habit. I have another 
observation to make in Bower's business. It is that I have .no right 
to charge E. Mac Carthy with the expense of the writ. 

I read this day 13 chapters in the Bible, 6 pages of Espinaase's 
'' Nisi Prius,'' and 35 pages of Gibbons' '* Decline and Fall of the 
Eoman Empire." I have this day begun the Bible. I have never 
read it through. I did not read law enough. I will, at least I intend 
for the future, to read 12 pages, if not more, a day. When I have 
occasion to mention Espinasse in future I will do it thus : E. N. P., 
Blackstone's " Commentaries" thus, B. C, ** Coke on Littleton," C. L. 
I mean to study until I go to bed ; it wants 5 minutes to 10, so that 



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O'Connell. 33^ 

this is not tlie whole work of the day — ** Bed dim loquimur fugit invida 
atoB I — I sent off a letter to John. 

Saturday, December 12^A, 1795. — ^I went to bed last night a few 
minutes after 12 and got up this morning at 9. This is giving too 
much time to sleep ; however, I hope we shall improve as we go on. I 
have written part of a letter to my Uncle Maurice.* My reading con- 
sisted of 15 chapters of the Bible, 15 pages of E. N. P., and 34 pages 
of Gibbon to page 1132. I have also written a page of a book equal 
in size with this of extracts from the last- mentioned author. I may 
here remark that I do not intend to mention everything I read. I con- 
ceive the trifling productions of the day unworthy of my notice. It is 
true, time is lost in reading them, but it would be adding to the loss 
to write down their names. I am now at a loss for materials to swell 
this number to the size of the others ; I shall therefore discourse a 
little on style. The greatest fault of mine is want of due connection ; 
my letters and writings in general have the appearance more of a 
jumbled mass than of a united train of ideas. The defect has, I be> 
lieve, two sources — ^the one an inherent shallowness of conception, the 
other frequent interruption. The first can be remedied by the attain- 
ment of a more enlarged stock of ideas ; the latter, being only a bad 
custom, may be laid aside with the assistance of care. 

Sunday, December 13M, 1795. — ^I went to bed last night at about 
half-past eleven, and got up at half after nine. Since I wrote yester- 
day's number, which was at a late hour last night, I have read from 

* This is the only letter of this period given by John CyConnell in the memoir of 
his Father. Though already in print, unlike the rest of these pages, we copy two 
paragraphs which contain a sufficiently striking programme of life to be drawn up by 
a young lad just out of his teens. , 

** I haye now two objects to pursue— the one, the attainment of knowledge; the 
other, the acquisition of those qualities which constitute the polite gentleman. I am 
oonrinced that the former, besides the immediate pleasure that it yields, is calculated 
to raise me to honours, rank, and fortune ; and I know that the latter serves as a 
general passport : and as for the motives of ambition which you suggest, I assure you 
that no man can possess more of it than I do. I have indeed a glowing and — if I may 
use the expression — an enthusiastic ambition, which converts every toil into a pleasure 
and every study into an amusement. 

'* Though nature may ha^e given me subordinate talents, I never will be satisfied 
with a subordinate situation in my profession. No man is able, I am aware, to supply 
the total defidenoy of ability, but everybody is capable of improving and enlarging a 
stock however small and, in its beginning, contemptible. It is this reflection that affords 
me consolation. If I do not rise at the bar, I will not have to meet the reproaches 
of my own conscience. It is not because I assert these things now that I should 
conceive myself entitled to call on you to believe them. I refer that conviction which 
I vrish to inspire to your experience. I hope — ^nay I flatter myself, that when we meet 
again the success of my efforts to correct those bad habits which you pointed out to 
me will be apparent Indeed, as for my knowledge in the professional line, that 
cannot be discovered for some years to come ; but I have time in the interim to 
prepare myself to appear with great eclat on the grand theatre of the world;^' t 

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34^ O'Connell. 

the 132iid to the 348th page of (Hbbon— 216 pages. Let me obsenre 
that it Ib the second volume which is mentioned as having afforded 
the subject of my reading during a part of the last day. The extracts 
mentioned in page 4 were taken from the 1st volume : when I change 
either I will set the alteration down. In concluding last night I made 
a few observations on my style; that subject I shall now take up again. 
In my letters I perceive ^at I am too fond of commencing my sentences 
with '^I do this" or ''I do that/' thus disuniting phrases ; they cannot 
run into one another as they should* I remember having read a remark 
on Caesar^s '^Commentaries*' that in them he shows his modesty by 
never using the word '^ Ego." If the contrary is a proof of vanity, I 
am well aware that it would be hard for me to acquit myself of the 
charge. 

I should have finished my letter to my unde this day and have 
not done it. This is another instance of the neglect with which I have 
taxed myself so justly. The fact is, I did intend to terminate the 
letter, but put off executing my intention from hour to hour ; and so 
while I was resolving to act, the day stole away. So true it is that 
procrastination is the thief of time. 

Bennett is to be married to-morrow — within a short period that is 
to befall him which at least to one of my way of thinking is the source 
of pure happiness or unmixed sorrow ; for it is my opinion that there 
is no medium in the marriage state. To it I look forward for my 
felicity in this life. Indeed we are generally looking forward. I 
should express my meaning better by saying that it is my opinion men 
always look to some future perigd of their lives, to some future event 
for their happiness. '' When 1 have done this or that, then I will be 
happy;" such is the usual language of men, but when the period of 
the completion of their wishes arrives, with one it is an advantageous 
uiarriage, with another the acquisition of a fortune, with a third the 
restoration of health, &c. The much- desired object once enjoyed, hap- 
piness not found in it is placed on some other imattainable desire, 
which, when come at, is found as vain and empty as the former — ^hap- 
piness again removed and again sought for in vain. This pursuit has 
been well compared by Goldsmith to the endeavour at reaching the 
circle which bounds the horizon. I read two chapters in the 
Bible. 

Monday, December lith, 1795. — I went to bed last night at a quarter 
before twelve, and got up this morning at a quarter before nine. I 
finished my letter to my uncle, and read 32 pages of Gibbon. Just off 
to London, so that the transactions of this day will afford subject for 
part of to-morrow's number. 

Wedneeday, December 16^A, 1795. — I would have written something 
yesterday but for what I am going to mention. After returning from 
town I put it off for awhile, then deferred until after supper. I found 

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GConnelL 341 

it oppress me as a disagreeable task — ^in fact, it occasioned some sensa- 
tions which I used to feel when formerly I intended on a day to go to 
confession — now, I mean that this Journal shall only give me pleasure 
and profit ; therefore, I resolved to write nothing last night, as I felt 
writing a burthen. In the foregoing paragraph I have expressed 
myself veiy ill : I have not said what I meant ; that I shall do the 
same now seems to me scarce doubtful. There is a kind of cold hanging 
about me these two days which dulls my faculties. Besides, my trip 
to town has put very much out of sorts ; it has deranged my plans of 
study, and I do not yet feel myself at home again. I will go to town 
as seldom as possible, since I feel the pernicious effects attending my 
journeys thither. They are productive of no benefit, yet they make 
me spend a great deal of money. I went to the play on Monday night 
at Drury Lane. The tragedy of Alexander the Oreat was acted, with the 
farce of The Devil to Pay. I did not, on the whole, admire the acting ; 
Kemble, who played Alexander, did not give the lines the smoothness 
for which, and for which alone, many of them are remarkable. Let 
me instance the lines beginning with — 

** When glory like the daszling eagle stood — " 
lines which contain a tissue of false, unmeaning, or exaggerated images. 
There is, indeed, a smooth flow of nimibers in them, pleasing to the 
ear ; to render them palatable, they should receive from the speaker 
this, the only beauty they possess. Kow Kemble, on the contrary, 
pronounces them as if they consisted of a number of disjointed half- 
sentences. In the mad scene be appeared too tame ; in the cold fit 
which the poison occasions, he puffed and blew, and swelled his cheeks 
to puff and blow, in a manner truly pantomimic and highly ridiculous. 
Mrs. Siddons, I find, is not much admired in the character of 
Boxana. It is not, in my opinion, because she plays the part ill, but 
because it ill suits her style of playing. The strength and modulation 
of her voice render any character doubly interesting in her hands. 
With our modem actors it is no small difficulty to understand the dia- 
logue of a tragedy ; but Mrs. Siddons has the faculty of making herself 
clearly understood in every part — and to this faculty, I conceive, she 
owes no small share of her high estimation. 

Benson, in Clytus was more chaste than he usually is. The char- 
acter seems adapted to his manner of acting ; that stem gravity of the 
veteran (Jreek was happily displayed. 

As for Charles Kemble, I believe he possesses no other requisite for 
a theatrical hero than a large stock of impudence : and impudence, 
unaccompanied by merit, is not very captivating in any condition. 
Miss Miller will, in my opinion, be a good actress. 
I read this day and last night 85 pages of Ossian's Poems, 108 
pages of Goodwin's " Political Justice/' and 234 pages of Piudar*s 
Poems. ^ y 

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342 Lux Perpetua, 

After the preceding entry, there is a fortnight's break in the young 
law-student's diary, owing to a quarrel with a certain Douglas Thomp- 
son, son to a brewer of Ohiswick. How serious the matter threatened 
to be will appear from the reflections with which the future antagonist 
of D'Esterre closes a minute history of the adventure : — '' All I have 
to fear is precipitation in plunging myself in future into quarrels. I 
know that duelling is a vice ; yet there is a certain charm in the inde- 
pendence which it bestows on a man that endears it, even to many 
thinking minds. I have, however, made a resolution not to fight a 
duel from the time that I become independent of the world." 

(To he continued.) 



LUX PEEPETUA! 

OSOUL, be not so sore afraid 
To see the coming night ; 
Qo forth to meet it undismayed. 
For — after the darkness, Light ! 

The clouds lean down, the shadows close, 

Dear eyes fade out of sight ; 
But under the black earth hides the rose 

And — after the darkness, Light ! 

The stars are quenched, the path is lost. 

Feet fail to move aright ; 
But, harvests wait beneath the frost, 

And — after the darkness, Light ! 

Heart-broken, blind, oh ! strive no more, 

With shadows cease to fight ; 
See ! dawn is breaking on yon shore, 

And — after the darkness. Light ! 

The prostrate will accepts of death 

The soul submits to night. 
Biso in thy splendour. Sun of Faith — 

After the darkness, Light. 

E, M. 



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( 343 ) 



THE MONK'S PEOPHECT. 

A TALK. 
BY ATTDB o'bBISN. 

CHAPTER X. 

BUSTAOB BEEX8 PASTURES NEW. 

One eyemng, Mrs. Ormsby sat in her easy-chair, crimping Sydney's 
mnslin frills, and the girl was bending over her books, when Eustace 
MacMahon, bounding up stairs, three steps at a time, burst triumph- 
antly into the room with the intelligence that he had passed his final 
examination. The widow warmly congratulated him. ''The only 
drawback to my satisfaction, Eustace dear, is that you will be leaying 
us," she said. 

*' Eustace, won't it be dreadful f exclaimed Sydney. " When 
must you go?" 

" Before a month, 6yd, but we'll have a few jolly days yet. Oh, 
won't it be splendid, over the rolling sea P I feel as if I had caught 
that fabulous oyster ; and, of course, when I open it, PU find the 
biggest pearl out." 

The widow smiled. ** The exercise of opening it may be better 
for you than the actual pearl, Eustace. Work is very wholesome, and 
they say the pleasure is in the pursuit, even in love adOPairs." 

*' Carrie is already speculating for me," said Eustace. She talked 
to me like a modem Moses on the subject of matrimony to-day ; gave me 
sage advice on the advisability of not throwing myself away, and made 
me aware of all the man-traps that would be set for my innocent foot- 
steps. When will you be setting snares for your fellow-creatures, 
Sydney?" 

" Indeed, I never will," answered Sydney. " Why should I want 
to snare them ?" 

<< Don't ask abstruse questions, Syd. Why does Satan snare us ? 
Both are diabolical inclinations, I suppose. Carrie's fear now is that 
111 marry a half-black, and taint the pure blood of the Mac Hahons." 

" Well, I hope you'll make a wise selection," said Mrs. Ormsby, 
« when you go about it. I don't think 'tis likely you will do anjrthing 
foolish ; you have a good deal of common sense." 

" Well, no, I don't think I shalL Pm not a soft-hearted youth ; 
I never get spooney, like other fellows. I think the only thing I'd be 
fastidious about is a wife ; she should satisfy my head as well as my 
heart I should not like to marry one I should be ashamed of either 
as to looks, manners, birth, or position ; which confession argues that 
I have not whac is called a fine nature.'' 

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344 ^^^ MonKs Prophecy. 

*' It argues that you have some regard for public opinion, my dear, 
and if* that regard keeps one from doing generous actions, it also keeps 
one from doing foolish ones : and you couldn't be too particular about 
the person with whom you were to spend the whole of your life." 

'' I'll be an old bachelor ; .I^U fly from a woman as from the face of 
a serpent. I won't lift my eyelids when I see a female black. Ah. 
Mrs. Ormsby," he continued, clasping his hands behind his head, 
' ' how glad I am I passed. I was becoming quite feverish with anxiety 
to be off ; I had a most unf ratemal dislike to be living with Carrie ; you 
would fancy sometimes that she was doing quite the benevolent touch, by 
keeping me, and that my fortune was made by my having the advan- 
tages of the polite society in which she moved. I could live as cheaply 
anywhere else, but I knew Winnie preferred me to stay there ; we 
used to squabble in a most unfashionable manner ; she would rile an 
angeL" 

" Well, I'm glad you remained with her ; it was better than to have 
you living by yourself. 'Tis so easy to fall in with bad companions." 

'' Living with Carrie wouldn't keep me from bad companions ; — and, 
do you know, I think the society of thoroughly worldly people, well- 
behaved, respectable men and women, who never lift their gluttonous 
eyes from the flesh-pots, is more demoralising than that of the ostra- 
cised Bohemians, who are often more wild than wicked, and perhaps 
sin more against the laws of society than against the laws of God. I 
often found bad people better than good people, if you understand the 
paradox." 

" Yes, I understand," said Mrs. Ormsby: *'you prefer anything 
to a ' whited sepulchre.' Our Lord had great tenderness for sinners ; 
but He showed none towards the Pharisees, who, according to the 
world, were very respectable men. The race hasn't died out, I sup- 
pose." 

" I detest all sorts of hypocrisy," said Eustace ; " I can fancy my- 
self capable of any sort of viUainy except concealing that I was a 
villain. The little hypocrisies of society are detestable: the vain 
shows, the shams, the false smile& You'll hear a hostess press a 
visitor to stay, and say, when her back is turned, she didn't think she 
would ever go. You'll hear them backbite and tell little disparaging 
tales of each other, and then kiss and embrace when they meet. Isn't 
that all vile hypocrisy ? I have heard men detracting the very people 
they will dine with to-morrow — whispering away people's characters, 
laughing over, and circulating evil stories with a sort of satanic plea- 
sure, and by-and-by clasping their hands with all the appearance of 
good-fellowship. Isn't all that hideous hypocrisy ? If I spoke badly 
of a man or a woman, or repeated the evil I heard spoken of them, I'd 
think myself a mean pretender if I put out my hand to him or her as 
if I had never done so.*' 



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The Monies Prophecy. 345 

** I fear you will have few to imitate you in your lofty morality, dear, 
and yet it is only wliat the Ghristian religion enforces. It is something 
extraordinary how interesting the sin and weakness of one man is to 
another; hearing it is quite a pleasant stimulant. If there be a 
shameful tiial, what a run there is on the papers ! An article in a 
journal by the gr^test genius ever bom would not sell it so rapidly. 
And what crowded courts to hear the minutin of guilt ; we might excuse 
men for such morbid curiosity, but what shall wesay to modest women?" 

" Modest women/' said Eustace, scornfully, '' I set it down as an 
established fact that there isn't a trace of modesty in the nature of a 
woman who would do so. I would avoid her as I would a pestilence. 
It was beastly to see them crowding to the courthouse some time ago, 
you remember the trial ; and, indee4» if they heard the remarks made 
on them, and the bets as to the stnaUnesa of the difference between their 
modicum of morality and the persons tried, they might stay away. I 
wonder they wouldn't carry some of their hypocrisy so far as to pretend 
to be modest, even. Sydney, Sydney, rouse up ! Won't it be grand 
when we are all in a new world P" 

'* What shall we do at all when you are gone, though P" answered 
Sydney; *' we'll have no one then.*' 

" But you will be following me, Syd, in another year almost ; then 
we shall be all together, and live happy for ever after like the good 
people in stoiy-books." 

'' Hease God/' said the mother. 

'' Only for that knowledge I would not be in such glee, faith. 
Leaving you, Mrs. 0., would be like parting with Winnie, not to men- 
tion my youngest and most petted little sister ;" he stroked the girl's 
bright hair as he spoke. '* Won't it be jolly when we are all abroad 
together ? Pancy Syd aniving with the blushing honours of young 
ladyism thick upon her ! I expect to receive great demonstrations of 
affection from weak-minded young men about that time." 

The weeks were not long slipping by. Eustace managed to 
Bpend a part of each day with them, and all Mrs. Ormsby's fears about 
a possible attachment being allayed, she permitted him to take Sydney 
to see everything that she had not already seen. She saw by the 
mamier in which they took the separation that their affection for each 
other was not mingled with any deeper emotion. In about six weeks 
he was ready to sail, and so with wet eyes, they saw his bright young 
face vanish out of their lives. Mrs. Ormsby missed him more than she 
thought possible. She was one of those woman who unconsciously lean 
upon the stronger sex, who are more happy obeying than commanding, 
and she felt the young man a protection in the city. Father Horan 
also was far away ; he had become delicate, and had got leave to spend 
the winter in Italy, with the MaoMahons, so that she felt absolutely 
friendless. ^^ . 

You X. No. 107. DigitizelSy LjOOglC 



346 The Monks Prophecy. 

The monotonous montliB crept on. One Monday morning Mrs* 
Bany came as usual for the clothes, and found Mrs. Ormsby lying on 
the sofa ; she arose languidly, and began to count the linen. 

Mrs. Barry looked keenly at her. '' Do you take a walk at all,, 
ma'am P" she said. *' This is a fine day, if you took a little turn.** 

'' I don't care to go out ; 'tis so easy to tire me^" answered Mrs* 
Ormsby : '' Sydney walks with her school companions, so there is na 
need." 

<< You'd want thefresh air yourself, ma'am, you are looking poorly ; 
'tis too confined you are." 

"I have fine fresh air coming in here, Mrs. Barry. Sometimes I 
fancy I smell the country; the new-mown hay, the hawthorn, the 
meadow-sweet, everything in turn ; but I don't care to go out ; the 
streets are so lonely." 

** Wouldn't you pay a little yisit to your own place in the countiy f" 
said Mrs. Barry; ''you'd see how 'twould stir you up, and make you 
fine and strong. I am making very bold on you, ma'am, but I think 
you'd want a bit of change ; I do, indeed." 

'< Going to the country would be too expensiTe," replied Mrs. 
Ormsby; "besides, all my friends are either dead or gone, and 
Sydney's education must not be delayed." 

" 'Tis a pity; I don't like to see you looking so delicate," said Mrs. 
Barry. 

'' Age is telling on my appearance, Mrs. Barry," she answered, 
idth a faint smile ; ^' we can't look wdl always; we will soon haye^ 
change enough when we go to our dear friends." 

" I wish you were going to-morrow, ma'am." 

''Ko, we won't go for nearly another year; Sydney must be- 
finished, she will be more than seventeen thai. Everything was so- 
arranged. I am uneasy about Mrs. Wyndill ; I had no letter by the^ 
last maiL The time seems very long, Mrs. Barry." 

'' No wonder you'd feel it long, faith, and to be sitting here by 
yourself, and never stirring out," said Mrs. Barry. 

Mrs. Ormsby sat down, and leaned her head wearily against tho 
end of the sofa. *' Yes, time is very .long," she said, '^ but it will 
soon be past" 

'* Excuse me, ma'am, I think there is something the matter with 
you," said Mrs. Barry. 

<* Don't say that," answered Mrs. Ormsby, sitting suddenly upright,, 
with frightened eyes, '* don't say that ; I wake at night dreaming I 
am dying, and that my child was desolate. God ! what would she 
do if anything happened me ?' 

« Nothing will happen you, with the help of God," said Mrs. 
Barry ; ** 'tis only low you are. I was that way myself once, after a 
heartbreak I got The doctor gave me a bottle : a tonic they call it; 
and I came to myself in no time." Digitized by GoOglc 



The Monk's Prophecy. 3^7 

*^ Yee ; perhaps I onght to get one/' answered Mrs. Ormsby, press- 
ing her hands against her eyes, '* I sometimes feel so faint and worn 
out" 

'^ I'll go this minute and get it, ma'am," and Mrs. Bany, being a 
woman who could not be easily impeded, left the room at once, and 
returned in half an hour with the bottle of medioine, and a half-pint 
bottle of wine. She opened the latter at once, and poured some into a 
glass. '' You won't be offended with me,*' she said, *' for making so 
free ; but I know ladies don't keep the like sometimes, and you want 
it now to stir you a bit." 

Mrs. Ormsby obeyed her like a child, and seemed the better of the 
stimulant She promised her humble friend to be more careful of 
herself, and to place implicit confidence in the tonic. 

Next day one of NeP^'e's hampers arrived with a tukey, two 
geese, butter and eggs. Mrs. Barry came in for a moment to see how 
her prescription was agreeing with Mrs. Ormsby, and shared in the 
good things. It was too much to take an entire goose, she said, and 
it was only when the impossibility of two people being able to eat so 
many fowl was made quite dear to her, that she consented. The 
other goose was presented to Mrs. Oosgraye, and its odour was plea- 
sant to the nostrils of the landlady as she cooked it on the following 
Thursday. 

The head of the house, Mr. Joseph Cosgraye, was anything but a 
^^ecimen of the gmmt homo comforting to haye as the husband of one's 
bosom. He was one of those men who require a large arena for the 
exercise of their social talents, and who, finding the h(»ne oirde narrow 
oppressiye, and unexciting, naturally become extremely disagreeable 
in it, an^ make existence unendurable beside the domestic hearth. 
His laugh was quite a pleasant sound in the public-house, and no 
man was more generous in standing treats. He could sing a good 
aong, and tell a good story, and altogether had the name of being an 
open-hearted, good fellow, who was not over-well treated by fortune 
sometimes, when he was arraigned before police magistrates for not 
carrying his liquw in a becoming and orderly manner. Of course 
those generous instincts of his cost him the greater part of his earn- 
ings, when he wm earning at his trade, as house decorator, and his 
wife had full liberty to managejfor herself and her children as she 
thought best She kept possession generally of the money paid by 
the lodgers^ and that evident want of confidence in his monetaiy capa- 
city was the cause of numerous domestic broils. Her eldest son, and 
only comfort, paid her for his support. Julia was too fond of ribbons 
and feathers, to be able to contribute anything to the family eutstnog 
ao Mrs. -Cosgrave, like her lodger on the first fioor, gave a great deal 
of her thoughts to money calculations. Though she did her best, and 
managed to drag up her children somehow, she was a heMess poor 

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348 The Monk's Prophecy, 

woman, and did not know how to make the best of things. At any 
time she could forget all her grievances in the ideal woes of a heroine 
of romance, and would hang over the stove in her nntidy kitchen with 
a candle in one hand and an old novel in the other, utterly lost to all 
created things, till a knock at the door, or a call, would bring her baok 
to real life once more. Her wedded partner had mastered and cowed 
her down, yet occasionally, when goaded to desperation, she lifted an 
undaunted front, and gave him word for word with unexpected spirit. 
The odours of the goose were, according to Mr, Mallock, quite 
sufficient to make so thoroughly human a person as Mr. Cosgrave 
" unspeakably and significantly happy," but as Mr. Mallock cleverly 
and pathetically shows, it is difficult to make '* beautihil humanity'* 
entirely happy ; consequently notwithstanding the savoury odour which 
he altogether relished and appreciated, Mr. Cosgrave refused to be 
pleased and even-tempered in his own house. On this particular 
evening he let himself in as usual with his latch-key, strode down staizs, 
stumbled over a dog which belonged to his son, relieved his spirits by 
kicking it a few times, and set it howling piteously. 
** Wni you let my dog alone ?" said the boy. 
'' D — ^n him for a brute, I wouldn't feed such a cur." 
« You're not asked to feed him," replied the boy. 
** Have I anything to get to eat?" said Mr. Oosgrave, savagdy. 
'< The dinner will be ready in a minute," said his wife. 
'< If you made that young lady there do something instead of 
giving herself airs, it would be better for her," said Mr. Oosgrave^ 
flinging down his hat; *' such an idle crew." 

'' They're not idle," said the mother, taking the part of her chil- 
dren ; '' tiiey are more a help than a cost to us, this many a.day." 

<^0h, ye'rea valuable lot," sneered the head of the house; ''a 
nice dutdi for a man to come into." 

<< You don't come into us like a man," retorted his wife ; '' and if 
you do a great deal more work than we do, we are not much the 
better of it." 

'' Give me my dinner, and let me out of this infernal house," he 
exclaimed, in a voice of suppressed f uiy« 

The dinner was eaten almost in silence when placed on the table • 
the two younger children spoke in whispers ; the mother tried to ooa- 
verse with them, as if she were unconscious of the presence of a oenscff ; 
and Mr. Cosgrave muttered comments on her remarks, or showed he 
was attentive to her lightest word, by an occasional sneering laugh that 
was beyond all question or doubt very tiying, to any jmture not far 
advanced in sanctity. 

A dark spot burned on both of Mrs. Cosgrave's oheeka. Wheci 
dinner was over, Mr. Cosgrave . dragged a chair to the fire, sat to it 
with his feet on the fender, filled his pipe and lighted it, and flong 
down the tongs. ^.g.^.^^^ ^^ GoOgk 



The MonKs Prophecy. 349 

'* Julia, Where's that paper I bought on Saturday ? Look sharp, 
and get it." 

There was no account of the paper. 

" I believe I singed the goose with some of it/' said Mrs. Cosgraye ; 
** I thought you were done with it." 

'' Such a ourse-of 'Gbd place isn't in the world/' he answered, kicking 
the fire-irons. '' Nothing looked after, everything going to ruin and 
destruction." 

" 'Tis lucky for us you don't buy much," said Mrs. Cosgrave ; " and 
we don*t see you looking after a great deal yourself." 

" Oh, I needn't while I have you," was the reply ; " such a nice, 
tidy housekeeper ; novel-reading instead of looking after something." 
''I don't spend as much of my time over them as you do at the 
public-house," answered Mrs. Cosgrave, fiercely. 

The boy stood up, and calling to his dog went out. In another 
moment Julia took her hat, threw a shawl about her, and walked forth 
into the illuminated streets, that certainly looked more peaceful and 
attractive than home, that peculiar spot that no place is supposed to 
surpass. 

'' You'll drive your children to destruction," said the mother ; *' they 
can't stop indoors with your brutality. My poor children I" 

'' They're gone to destruction before, and 'tis your teaching, you 
infernal hag. As the old cock crows, the young cock learns. Teaching 
fhem to disrespect their father I" 

'* What have they to respect in you ?" said Mrs. Cosgrave ; '* do 
you ever show them a good example P Do you ever speak to them 
but to curse and abuse them ? Before God, since the day you were a 
father I never saw you take an interest in a child ; they were only 
things to vent your savage temper on." 

*• Blast you, give me none of your jaw, 'tis better for you,*' said 
Ur. Cosgrave, standing up ; "I had luck tiU the day I joined you." 

''I have more reason to curse that day than you have," answered 
Mrs. Cosgrave ; " for a day's pleasure or comfort I never had by you. 
And what would I care only for my unfortunate children ?" 

** Yourself and your children may go to ," was the reply, and 

Mr. Cosgrave sought more congenial companionship in a neighbouring 
public-house, where his voice could soon be distinguished singing 
'*The Oreen above the Bed," with great feeling and pathos. Mrs, 
Cosgrave was still agitated by the tempestuous emotion into which a 
sudden fit of spirit had betrayed her. She was unable to help the 
little maid-servant to remove the remnants of the goose. She took out 
'< Lost for Love," which she had carefully hidden away in the clothes- 
basket, and soon forgot her marital grievances, following the fortunes 
of the hero and his feminine adorers. 



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350 The Monks Prophecy. 

CHAPTER XI. 

A FATAL WALK. 

''Mother, let us come to the Botanic Gardens to-day/' said Sydney, 
one pleasant Sunday morning. " I am longing to see flowers, and 
you have not been out for the whole week." 

'' Yeiy well, dear, I am satisfied ; 'tis a fine day, and I will enjoy 
seeing the flowers, too. Do you remember we were in Bathmoylan this 
time last year? How fine Mrs. Oale's geraniums were." 

'' Mother, isn't it curious Mrs. Hassett never asks us now, or comes 
here ? I saw Winnie in the Square the other day. I looked in throu^ 
the rails ; she is ever so pretty. Isn't it a wonder she doesn't come 
near us ?" 

" No, Sydney, it is no wonder ; it is the way of the world. People 
like Mrs. Hassett haven't time to lose with those from whom they have 
nothing to gain. She had no personal affection for us, you know, as 
Winnie had." 

After eleven o'clock Mass, Sydney and her mother prepared two 
sandwiches, and wended their way to the Gardens. It was very lovely 
there, the fine trees made noble pillared arcades, and swayed above 
the slow, sweeping river. They rested now and then on the seats, 
when the beauty of any particular spot touched their fancy. They kept 
the green-houses for the last, and Mrs. Ormsby thought of the foliage 
over a narrow foreign grave, when she walked among the gigantiq 
tropical plants. 

While they were examining a curious flower at the end of on of 
he conservatories, a boisterous party entered. There were some gaily, 
dressed girls who talked and laughed, very unrestrainedly, with some 
equally loud young men. 

<' Mother," said Sydney, '' I think Miss Cosgrave is with those 
people." 

Some of the party came near, and stared rudely at the girl, who 
had, however, turned her attention again to the floral world. 

''Let us come out now, dear," said Mrs. Ormsby, when they had 



The day had changed unexpectedly; there was an unpleasant, 
drizzling rain. '' We will take the tram," said Mrs. Ormsby. They 
had nearly reached the tramcar, and were about to hail it, when they 
discovered the objectionable party from the (hardens were a little way 

I behind them, and evidently waiting for it. 

j " We will wait for another, Sydney," she said ; " I don't care to go 

I with those noisy people." 

By the time they could have got into another, their clothes were so 
damp that she concluded it would be safer to walk on than to sit down 
in them. When they reached home, they were well drenched Sydney 



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The Monk's Prophecy. 35 1 

looked lovely, from the eff eot of the soft rain and the exerciBe, and even 
1£t8. Ormsby enjoyed it Sydney helped her mother to change her 
dothee, made her lie on the sofa, and having disrobed herself in a 
moment, and made a rapid toilet, ran down stairs to make a cup of tea, 
and see after dinner. 

'' We must have such walks' every Sunday, mother,'* she said, that 
evening. " You look so well after it I delight in rain if I have 
nothing on me to spoil." 

The following Saturday, when Mrs. Bany came with the clothes, 
she found Mrs. Ormsby slightly unwell. 

**^ I think I must have got cold on Sunday," she said, in answer to 
her inquiries. '' I feel confused, and get hot and chilled every other 
moment.'* 

" I wish you saw a doctor," said Mrs. Barry, anxiously. " Tou 
haven't been well this time past, and 'tis a little sickness would lean 
on you." 

*' Doctors are too expensive a luxury, Mrs. Bairy. It will pass away# 
please Gh)d. I'll go to bed early." 

** Do, and take a hot drink, and bathe your feet. Miss Sydney will 
be home early to-day, and go to bed at once. 'Tis the safest place for 
folk when anything ails them ; an' you must keep her at home with you 
if you aren't better by Monday." 

** Oh, no. I would not like her to lose a day," said Mrs. Ormsby ; 
*'notaday." 

" Have sense, ma'am, and God bless you," replied Mrs. Barry. 
** She'll have days enough for her books ; sure, 'tisn't to earn her bread 
by learning she wants." 

'' God knows," murmured the widow ; " only Gk>d knows." 

When Mrs. Barry came early on Monday, she found her so much 
worse, that she told Sydney it was better not to consult her, but to send 
at once for the doctor. The doctor came, and said that a cold was 
acting on a very enfeebled constitution ; she should keep very quiet, 
take a great d^ of nourishment, and tzy change of air as soon as she 
could bear removal. 

One night, Mrs. Bany remained up with her very much against the 
widow's wish. '' You will have to work hard in the morning, Mrs. 
Barry, and it is cruel to have you losing a night's rest, and Sydney 
hears me if I make the least movement." 

** We'll let her have a good sleep to-night," said Mrs. Barry. '< The 
young wants it more thanjthe old \ I'm going to stop, so you may as 
well let me alone." 

About twelve o'clock Mrs. Ormsby awoke out of an uneasy doze* 
Mrs. Bany was seated in an arm-chair at the head of the bed. 
'* Sydney, Sydney; where is she P" aaked themother in a low, excited tone. 

** She is sound asleep, ma'am," said Mrs. Bany; " breathing as 
quiet as an infant" ^ . 

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iS2 The Monks Prophecy. 

*^ My poor child. Is she oovered, Mrs. Barry ? the night is oold." 

'* She's right snug ; don't yon mind her ; tiy and get a little sleep 
yourself." 

There was silence for a few minutes, and then Mrs. Ormsby said : — 

'' Mrs. Bany, do you think am I getting better ?" 

*' Indeed, then, I think you are coming on nicely," she replied ; 
** and if you only take courage you will do weU, please Ood." 

*' Oh, Mrs. Barry, what would she do if I died P What would become 
of her P Where would she go P and I haven't heard from Winnie ; 
maybe she is dead, too. Oh, ererything is dark to me, dark, dark." 

*' Have courage, dear lady," said Mrs. Barry, taking her fragile 
hand ; " isn't there a good God to provide for the orphan ?— doesn't He 
make them his care P Put your trust in T^^m^ and He won't fail you." 

'* I know it, but I am weak and wicked, and I have no faith. I 
despaired when I was left without a friend in Ireland. I try to lean 
upon my Lord, but I fall away. What would she do if I died, Mrs. 
Barry ; who would protect her, my friendless darling?" 

^ << She will have a friend in the Almighty Ood, and He'll raise up 
friends for her," said Mrs. Barry; "you'll injure yourself with this 
trouble of mind." 

** I'm always thinking of what I ought to do. Would it be better 
for me to write to Mrs, Wyndill, and say we'U go to her very soon, a» 
soon as she likes? I could die happy if my darling were with her; and 
perhaps she is sick, too. Ood ! pity us." 

** So He will pity you, dear heart" 

'* Hush, she is stirring. Oh, 'tis killing me, Mrs. Barry — ^killing 
me, to think of her being left alone in the cruel world. Will God for- 
give me for my want of trust in his adorable goodness P He took care 
of me day by day, why should I fear? I am like the wanderers in the 
desert, I murmur when mirades cease : but she is so young and so 
pretty. Do you wonder at my fears, Mrs. Barry ? You were a mother, 
yourself. 

" 'Tis killing you, sure enough, -.my poor lady. You're always 
alone, and always thinking. But now TU tell you what you'll 
do. Write as you said, to your friends, and say you'll go out as soon 
■as ever you are able, and don't be waiting till the two years is up. 
You'll be easy in your mind, then. And is there anyone that would 
come to you for a bit, and cheer yon up like ?" 

''I have no friend but you in Ireland. Mrs. Hassett gave up 
eoming to see me ; Father Moran is with the Macmahons in Italy. 
No one but you, except poor Nellie ; she couldn't leave the Hut and 
.the cow. But I wiU write to Winnie to-morrow. I am glad I decided. 
I feel easy already." 

Sydney laughed in her sleep. 

*' Isn't it pleasant to hear her, Mrsl Barry? I tried to conceal my 



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On Carlyl^s Reminiscences, 35J 

gloomy thoughts from her always, so as her young heart wouldn't be 
saddened ; sometimes, I think, perhaps it would have been wiser to 
let her know more of the sin and sorrow of the world, and prepare her 
for the future ; but, after all, innocence is a beautiful shield, and a 
blight disposition carries one over many trials, and she has a happy 
nature, my poor girl." 

''Ood will take care of her. Ko one can do it but Him, dear; try 
and sleep now, you're talking too much.'* 

** Yes, I will ; are you comfortable, though ? put my shawl on your 
shoulders. It was Eustace bought that chair for me before he went % 
he was yery fond of us. They all were, except Mrs. Hassett. And he 
would be like a brother to Sydney, my friendless girl ; but Ood will 

guard her, she is so good ; God will save ." She was worn out, and 

sank into a troubled sleep, which lasted for some hours. 

[To he eotUinued.) 



ON OABLYLE'S BEMINISCENOES. 

BY D. HXTITDBOM. 

T^nCE was when this our freebom age might seem 
J- A slaye for cringing to the man of noise 

Bombastic, that made rights divine the toys 
Of rugged dazzling might. This luring gleam 
Of minds benighted, who would fain esteem 
As gold a glittering heap of base alloys — 
This bubble burst by trusted hand — decoys 
Ko more the system-hunter to a dream. 
Well hast thou for this once the fearless truth 
Proclaimed, thou arch-distorter of the deeds 
Of men and nations ! Hail we, yet dispraise 
Thy selfish haste,* thy lack of manly ruth 

For soul f ar-readdng though befouled with weeds 
Of meanness choking up its giant ways. 

* Froude published the '* Reminitcenoee of Carljle " a couple of months after 
hie death, merdleaalT prtPting the most damning oonfesrions. 



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( 354 ; 



IRISH WOOL AND WOOLLENS. 

BT A BIBGTTBSIVE COZTTBIBUTOIL. 
IL 

Setubniko to the point whence we took our departure, and diverging 
into another path, let us note what indications of a foreign trade in 
Irish wool, raw or manufactured, may chance to turn up. That Ire- 
land, long before the Christian era, was the resort of the great trading 
•communities of the then known world ; that at the epoch of her con- 
version she had the advantage of well-established commercial relations 
with the neighbouring islands and the adjacent continent ; and that for 
succeeding centuries she maintained a profitable communication with 
Britain, Qaul, and Spain, are matters of history, and form the subject 
of interesting pages in Moore's " History of Ireland,** and in the work of 
Dr. W. K. Sullivan which I referred to in the first part of this 
article. 

No trace, however, of an export of cloth in those remote days have 
I come on ; nor is there any evidence, as far as I know, that at a later 
period the Danes, whether in their plundering expeditions through the 
island or their trading settlements on the sea-board made any store of 
the woolf els or the manufactured cloths of Ireland. 

Authorities state as an established fact that Irish woollens were 
well known and highly valued, long before England developed her 
cloth manufacture and acquired a foreign trade in that commodity. 
This, of course, supposes an export of the Irish product, at a time, too, 
when Italy and Flanders were at the head of the manufacturing in- 
dustries of which wool is the staple. Certain it is that in the 13th and 
14th centuries Ireland was much resorted to by trading companies 
from countries largely engaged in the wool trade. On the Dublin 
Guild merchant-rolls of that period we find registered representatives 
of almost eveiy craft or trade from France, Brabant, and Flanders.* 
Flemish merchants trading to Waterford, Toughal, and Cork have 
left their mark in the records of the time.f Florentine and other 
Italian merchants and money-dealers carried on their operations in 
Dublin and the provincial towns. The Eichardi of Lucca had agents 
at Boss, Kilkenny, Limerick, Waterford, Youghal, and Cork. A 
petition in French from these merchants, praying the viceroy to inquire 
into certain losses they had sustained in Ireland, and a writ by which 

* **H]Btorical and Municipal Document of IreUnd" (Englikh BoUa, a.d. 1172* 
1320). Edited by J. T.Gilbert. Pr^/iw?*. 

t Macphenon : '* Annals of Commeroe " (1805). 



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Irish Wool and Woolhns. 355 

Edward I. directs his representative to inquire into the allegations put 
forward in the complaint of his beloved merchants of the company of 
the Bichardi, may be seen in the second Tolume of *' Facsimiles of 
National Manuscripts of Ireland/' Mr. Oilbert, the editor of this 
splendid work, gives the facts relating to the trading transactions of 
the Italian mexcantile houses in the letterpress accompanying the 
documents reproduced. 

In those days, as *from time immemorial, the great traffic of the 
countiy was carried on at fairs.' Among the commodities bartered at 
these trading centres cloths of various kinds are mentioned. There is 
even evidence to show that the Irish mantle caught the fancy of con* 
tinental visitors, and was considered worthy of being transported 
across the Alps in days when luxury in dress was carried to excess in 
Italy; for it is on record that the Pope's agent in England obtained a 
Ucenoe in 1382 for exporting certain articles custom-free, and that 
among these articles were five mantles of Irish cloth, one of them 
lined with green, and a russet garment lined with Irish doth. 

Such being the state of things, it is not so very surprising that 
Irish serges made their way to Florence. But that the high dames of 
the Bepublic held the foreign fabric in estimation, and that the author 
of " Ditta Mundi" considered it worth his while to visit the remote 
island which produced so admired a material, are striking proofs of 
the excellence of the manufacture. " If in the middle of the 14th 
century,*' to quote Lord Charlemont, "the serges of Ireland were 
eagerly sought after and worn with a preference by the polished 
Italians and particularly by the Florentines, it must have been for the 
excellence of their quality, for Machievelli, in his ' History of Florence,' 
says (1380) that the woollen manufacture had long been established at 
Florence. That year the corporation of woollen weavers was the 
greatest and most powerful in Florence, containing in it, and presiding 
over, many andlliaiy trades, such as carders, dyers, etc.*' The work- 
ahopa of the wool trade in Florence, we learn from other authorities, 
amounted about that Idme to more than 200, and there were besides 
20 warehouses of the Oalimaia or trade in transalpine fabrics, which 
imported more than 10,000 pieces. The merchants of the Calimala 
ranked second among the Artiy or guilds, into which professions and 
trades were divided, that of the Doctors of Laws and notaries taking 
precedence, the bankers holding the third place, and the wool mer 
ehants, with the dyers and dressers, following. More than 30,000 
sonla were employed in the woollen manufacture, and it is said that 
at a single fair woollen goods to the amount of 12,000,000 crowns were 
sometimes sold. The merchants of Florence were not only rich and 
powerful, but held their heads very high. They were everywhere 
considered fit company for princes. None of the superior trades . and 
few of the others were beneath a citizen's attention, even in thehighest 

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356 Irish Wool and Woollens. 

families. Their sons were early placed in shope or warehouses — ^firsfc 
in Florence and then abroad. They travelled from country to country, 
becoming acquainted with the world and acquiring cultiyation and 
experience of the most valuable kind. In point of fact, every citizen, 
no matter what his rank, should enrol himself a member of one or 
another of the Arti* Dante's parents, it will be remembered, were of 
the guild of wooL 

Who knows but that Fasdo degli TTberti, noble though he was, may 
have known something otherwise than by hearsay of the Saia d'Irlanda ? 
Who knows but that he may have seen something of the world beyond 
the Alps even before he made the circuit commemorated in the '^Ditta 
Mundirt 

By a natural progression the woollen manufacture, as a great 
trade, extended to the northern countries of Europe. ** Venice and 

• Napier: <«Plor«itine History," toI. ii., (1846). Arthur Young: •«Tr»¥ol» 
during the jMn 1787-88-89," second edition (1794). The laet-named writer tnce» 
the ezoellenee of the FLorentine fabrics to the Frian Umiliate who came to the city, in 
1239, to improTe the manufacture of woollen cloth. They made the finest cloths of 
the age. He says that he was assured, when at Florence, that an assessment of one 
ihilling a week on the wages of the woollen manufacturers alone, built the Cathedral. 

t Essio was the grandson of Barinata degli Uberti, the renowned leader of the 
Ohibellines of Florence, and the conqueror of the Guelfs at the battle of Monte 
Aperto. Beaders of the " Dirina Oomedia " wiU remember the terrible and pathetic 
■cene in Canto X., when Farinata ** uprose erect with breast and front, e'en as of 
Hell be had in great despite.*' Fasio, driTen into banishment by the triumphant 
faction of the day, took the opportunity to trarel abroad. On his return he wrote 
the *' Ditta Mundi," an historical and geographical description of the world, probably 
in the year 1360. Haring spent many years of his old age in Verona, he died in 
peace there, and there was buried. Tiraboschi,1n hia « Storia deUa Ltteratura Italiana,*' 
Tumt F., baring giren a sketch of the poet's career, says in conduston, that he was 
certainly one of the beet poeta of his time, especially in force and energy of style. 
Mr. Bossetti la of opinion that Fazio's canzone '* portrait of his Lady Angiola of 
Verona," is a lore song not perhaps surpassed by any poem of its claas in existence, 
and he giTes a translation of it in "Bariy Italian Poeta." I hare nerer aeen the 
"Ditta Mundi." Quaritch's catalogues some time ago contained a fine MS. oa 
Tellum of the work, prioe £25 ; a copy of the first edition, likewise on Tellum price 
£5 ; and one or two copies with some leares stained, at a lower figure. HoweTcr, the 
*' Ditta Mundi " has disappeared from the later issues of the catalogue. In the Quiu 
collection, Trinity Oollege Library, there is a splendidly bound copy of the first 
edition ; but as far as the reading public are concerned, Ko. 70 in that collection of 
rare and beautiful Tolumes might as well be entombed with Fssio d^li Uberti at 
Verona, for the donor made it a condition of the bequest that no one should be 
allowed to consult any work in the collection, except in the presence of the Librarian. 
One would perhaps think twice before undertaking a journey to Italy in search of a 
copy of an early edition of the *' Ditta Mundi," but certainly one would think three 
times before asking the learned and urbane librarian of T.C.D. to stand by while a 
reader endeaToured to seise the meaning of what are described as almost unintrtligiblo 
pages. An edition, " redotto a buona lesione " was published at Milan in 1826. 



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Irish Wool and Woollens. 357 

the other Italian states," says a weU-informed writer,* carried on the 
woollen manufacture when the rest of Europe remained ignorant and 
unciTiliEed ; but when other countries that produced wool began to 
manufacture their own materials, the Italian manufactures declined. 
The Flemings first perceived their advantage for a commercial inter- 
course with the north of Europe ; and, though they were without wool 
of their own, yet, being nearer to the countries that produced it, par- 
ticularly England, they were enabled to procure the raw material on 
cheaper terms, and in a short time to undersell their rivals, and super- 
sede them in the foreign market." England, in course of time, likewise 
awoke to a sense of her own advantages and interests. Her exports of 
the raw material may have been considerable, but she was far behind- 
hand in weaving wool, until Edward III. directed his energetic mind 
and strong will, to the fostering and extending of a profitable trade. 
Taking advantage of discontents among the manufacturers of Flanders, 
he invited Flemish weavers to come and settle in England. Seventy 
families of Walloons crossed the sea, and established themselves in 
different towns, but principaUy in Norwich, where they were fre- 
quently visited by the king and his consort, their countrywoman, 
Philippa of Hainault. These expert manufacturers soon taught the' 
Englidi to work up their own wool into fine cloths. Edward conferred 
many privileges on the industrious and skilful strangers, and caused 
various ordinances to be made for the encouragement of the trade. It 
was enacted, that '' no man nor woman, great nor small (except the 
king himself, and a few privileged persons) shall wear no cloth other 
than is made in England, Ireland, Wales, or Scotland." The prices 
of doth were fixed by edict, and the fabrics specified which should be 
worn by the various classes of the community. Moreover, the quality 
of the woollen shrouds people were to be buried in was prescribed. 
The king derived a large income from the duty paid on every sack of 
wool exported. This duly was collected at places or ports called 
staples, where " the king's staples " was said to be established, and to 
which all goods should be brought, for payment of the customs, 
before they could be sold or exported. A Statute of Staple was passed, 
appointing certain towns to be in future the staple for wools : the first 
chapter directing that, for Ireland, staples '* shall be perpetually 
holden at DeveUn, Waterford, Cork, and Drogheda, and not else- 
where." By other ordinances, of the same reign, a staple or market 
for English wool (Irish, of course, being included) was established at 
Ctdais, Bruges, Brussels, Louvain, and Mechlin.f 

About this lime there turns up another remarkable testimony to 
the excellence of our Irish serges. The promoters of the woollen 

« PrMton : ** Priie Bmj on the Natural Adrantagea of Ireland. Ac. fto.** (180S). 
t Longman : ** Hktory of the Life and Timee of Edward IH.,** tqL L (18(fi9). 
♦• Annalt of Commerce," voL L Smiles : " The Huguenoto " (1867^^ by GoOqIc 



Irish Wool and Woollens. 

manufaotore in the Britisli Isles found reason to complain that in 
Spain the industrious and enterprising Catalonians were manufacturing 
serges, and supplying the fabric to the French as Irish. " The stuff 
lied «ayM, nuide in that country (Ireland) were in such request, that 
they were imitated by the manufacturers of Catalonia, who were in the 
practice of making the linest woollen goods of every kind."* 

In course of time the woollen manufactures of England acquired 
a high character, and were much in demand on the continent. In the 
Butch market '^ English serges " were held in superior estimation. 
But the goods so classed were in reality, to a great extent, Irish ; and 
the author of the prize essay on '' the Natural Advantages of Ireland " 
shows how it was that our native manufacture, in this instance, lost 
its identity. The criterion of the buyer, he remarks, was a particular 
manner of folding and packing. Quantities of Irish serges used to be 
sent to England. They were then new folded and packed by the 
English factors, who received a percentage for their trouble, and 
finally, were exported to the Dutch market, under the denomination 
of EngUsh serges. 

However, the Irish did not by any means pass all their products 
' through the neighbouring island. Their merchants had establish- 
ments at the Brabant marts, or fairs, and dealt in a great variety of 
commodities, among which wool and f eUs of hides are enumerated. 
Towards the end of the fifteenth century trade with foreign countries 
was greatly facilitated for Ireland as well as England, by the con- 
clusion of a treaty of peace, commerce, and alliance between 
Henry YII. of England and the Archduke Philip, sovereign of the 
Netherlands. By the provisions of this treaty liberty was allowed on 
both sides to trade to each other's dominions without asking for licence 
or passport ; and to cany all manner of merchandise, whether wool, 
leather, victuals, arms, horses, jewels, and other wares, either by land 
or water, from Calais, England, and Ireland to the countries of Brabant, 
Elanders, etc. That the fiourishing city of Waterford carried on a 
direct trade in wool with Brabant, and enjoyed valuable privileges in 
connection with its wool exports, even before that treaty was concluded, 
is evident from an inquiry that took place in the same reign (referred 
to in Mollyneux's " Case of Ireland "), regarding a Waterford vessel, 
carrying wool to Sluice (I'Ecluse, the port of Bruges), which was 
driven by stress of weather into Calais, and seized there by the 
governor. It was pleaded by the owners that the merchants of 
Waterford and dieir successors had a licence from the King of England 
to cany wool where they pleased.! traces of an Irish trade with this 

* " Annalf of Commeroe," toL i. 

t Campion, writing in the reign of Elisabeth, deaeribes Waterford and Bungarran 
ai full of traffic with England, France, and Spain, by means of thdr excellent good 
haten. A writer in the UUter Arokmolcgieal Jouriutl (? oL W.) gifes an interesting 



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Irish Wool and Woollens. 359 

part of Europe turn up at the date of Elizabeth's reign. Ouiodardini, 
in his description of the Netherlands (quoted in the '' Annals of Oom- 
meroe ^\ says that Antwerp takes from Ireland skins and leather of 
diyerse sotto, and some low-prioed cloths. 

The foregoing sketch, slight though it is, shows plainly enough 
that Irish weavers were not unskilled in remote days, and that the 
serg«8, friezes, and other stufPs they produced were of no mean yalue» 
And yet, some writers would lead careless readers to imagine that the 
inhabitants of Ireland knew little of arts or industry until tiie fortunate 
day when the province of XJlBter was planted with English and Scottish 
fanners, traders, weavers, and labourers, in the reign of James I. 
Mr. Proude, for example, says that the new colonists ''went over to 
earn a living by labour in a land which had produced little but 
banditti ;'' and tiiat then, " for the first time, the natural wealth of 
Ireland began to reveal itself ; commerce sprung up ; . . .busy fingers 
were set at work on loom and spinning-wheel; fields fenced and 
drained grew yellow with rolling com, and the vast herds and flocks 
which had wandered at will on hill and valley were turned to profit- 
able aooount." Assuredly, the author of '' The English in Ireland " 
was wool-gathering himscdf when he discovered that the arts of apinning 
and weaving were a novelty to the aborigines of the island, and that 
the Tast flocks of Erin had from time immemorial wandered up hill 
and down dale, idly consuming their own fleeces. 

If such had been the case, what oould be the meaning of aproposal 
ser.'onsly made in the very reign of the monarch who decreed the Planta- 
tion, to the effect that a restraint should be laid upon the wools and 
woolfels of Ireland, the exportation of which was calculated to 

■kaleh of the dtj, iU ezteiifivv trade in day* gone by» and the attraetiom it poiMMed 
for foreigiwn at all timee. The writer, the Ber. T. Gimlette, among other remarki 
makes in eubstanoe the following : From the earliest Umei Waterford afforded a home 
and shelter to the foreigner. The Danee made it one of their first settlements. 
Konnan knights established themselTes there. Templars and Knights of St. John, 
on their return from the Crusades settled in the city on the Suir, and Dominicans and 
Pranciscans from France and 8paiB had eonTonte and churches in the midst of the 
population. In the days of Henry YII. the Irish trai&o with the south of France 
for Oasooigne wines was almost monopolised by Waterford, which became in 
succeeding reigns the great port of transit, not alone to England and Wales, but also 
to Flanders, Spain, and many parts of France. Contmental traders in the middle of 
the 16th century discorered the peculiar adrantages of a residence in the town, and 
settled there. Later on the Huguenots founded families which long maintained an 
honourable position in the land of their adoption. 

It may be interesting to note that a city which in times nearer to our own sank to 
a low positaon as a trading port (" Busy as a Waterford merchant — doing nothing/' 
was a common saying in the south, not so long ago), is exery day rising in 
eommercial importance. The quay has a busy character added to its native 
picturesqueness ; and at KUmacthomas, not many miles from the city, is the seat of a 
flourishing woollen manufactory, one of the few of which Ireland now can boast. 

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360 Irish Wool and Woollens. 

interfere prejudidaUy with England's foreign trade P* Commeroe 
could not have been created and extended with suoh amazing celexit/ 
in a country inhabited by lawless men and useless animals, as to 
become already a danger to the state which had imdertaken to civilize 
the dependent province. A trade which included exports to Spain 
and Portugal of hides, wool, yam, rugs, blankets, and '' sheep-skins 
with the wool," in the early years of King James's successor, was 
surely not a growth of yesterday's date. Again, fighting with wind- 
mills was hardly one of Strafford's foibles ; and he, at any rate, when 
his turn came to do something for Ireland, would not have given him- 
self so much trouble in planning the destruction of a trade which was 
only new-bom. 

Strafford's scheme for holding Ireland in subjection, and draining 
her resources for the benefit of a ruined exchequer, and a faithless 
king, was at once bold in outline and comprehensive in detail. If, 
instead of legislating for a nation, the Lord Deputy had been 
maliciously bent on taking all the savour and sweetness and warmth 
out of the life of a colony of galley slaves, he could not have devised 
anything more likely to effect his purpose. He strove to secure for 
the government in Ireland a monopoly of salt and a monopoly of 
tobacco; he contemplated imposing a tax on bees; and he was 
•determined to prevent the Irish from exporting their wool, or manu- 
facturing it at home for their own use. " Wentworth resolved," says 
his biographer, '^ that all the wool manufactures of Ireland should be 
stopped, in order to compel her to purchase them from England. The 
Irish were not to be allowed to weave and spin their own wool, but 
this same wool was first to be taken to England, where it was to pay 
a heavy duty, and when turned into doth, carried back to Ireland, 
where again a duly was to be imposed,' thus absolutely doubling the 

■customs."! 

The writer of a recently published pamphlet,^ which indudes a 
good deal of information of a useful and seasonable kind, having re* 
f erred in general terms to Strafford's system of legal spoliation, seems 
greatly to wonder how so grave a historian as Leland should impute 
to a statesman like Wentworth the design of restraining the Irish from 
indraping their own wool for the direct purpose of reducing the people 
to sudi a strait that they could not revolt from their allegiance to Uie 

* This was in 16*22. Beferring to the droumitonoe Smith, in hit " Hemoirt of 
Wool" (1747), makes the following remark: '*Here then, by the way, it may be 
noted that the exportation of wool from Ireland is a complaint of a more early date 
than is commonly obserred.'* 

t Bliiabeth Cooper :*< The Life of Thomas Wentworth, Barl of Strafford ** (1874}» 
voL L 

X Edward Blackbume: ** Causes of the Deoadenoe of the Indiistriee of Ireland.* 
<1881). 



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Irish Wool and Woollens. 361 

Orown without nakedness to themselTes and their families. Mr. 
Blackbnme soouts the notion that Wentworth, who, '' whatever his 
failings and prejudices may have been, was unquestionably a man of 
intelleot and talent," should have originated the notion of ''strengthen- 
ing the connection between the two countries by the inability of the 
nation to revolt in consequence of their haying no dothes." One 
<»n hardly read this part of the pamphlet without a smile. The pity 
is that two or three such pages did not fall in the way of the modem 
Olothes Philosopher, when that master of trenchant satire was engaged 
on his '' Sartor Besartus." 

r^ Making excuses for Strafford in this matter of the wool is simply 
labour lost. His own words leave no doubt as to his intentions or 
the heartinsss of his endeavour. '< I am of opinion," he says, '' that 
all^wisdom advises to keep this kingdom as much subordinate and 
dependent upon England as possible, and holding them from the 
manufacture of wool (which, xmless otherwise directed, I shall by all 
xneans discourage), and then enforcing them to fetch their clothing 
from thence, and to take their salt from the king (being that which 
^vee value to all their native staple commodities), how can they depart 
from us without nakedness and beggary?* Lord Strafford's biographer 
Justly remarks that such a sentence as this would alone be sufficient to 
wipe out the memory of a thousand benefits, and wonders at '' the cold 
•cruelly of binding in the fetters of contingent rags and famine the 
'little sister' whose wealth was to enrich the 'more excellent' by 
ineans of her silver mines," &c. &a 

The scheme for compelling the Irish to take from the king alone 
the salt without which diey must starve, since they depended so much 
on salted provisions for their subsistence, fell to the ground when it 
was discovered that the profit would be too small to compensate for 
the trouble of carrying it into execution. Nor did the earl wear his 
head long enough to mature the plan for making the Irish dependent 
on England for their clothing, and hindering them from continuing 
their exports of woollens which, he conceived, were likely to beat by 
their oheapness the Engliah out of the trade. 

As a set off against this base attack on Irish wool, I must note that 
'during Strafford's administration in Ireland, the native fashions in 
beards and olothes were freed from the penalties imposed on them by 
{oimer governments. In the session of 1634-5 an Act was passed 
in Dublin ''for Eepeal of divers statutes heretofore enacted in this 
kingdom of Ireland," and, as the preamble set forth, to put an end to 
the distinction between subjects, since now the happy change of times 
allowed of such abolition. One of those acts which ''shall be from 
henceforth utterly repealed and made voyde of none effect to all in- 
tents, constructions, and purposes," was that made in the 25th year of 
the reign of King Henry YI., whereby it was ordained " that he 

Vol. X.. No. 107. Digitized by QoOOgTe 



362 Irish Wool and Woollens. 

that will be taken for an Engliahman shall not use a beard upon 
his upper lip alone," under penalty of being dealt with as an Irish 
enemy. Another of the repealed Acts was one passed in the fifth year 
of Edward lY., the plain meaning of which was that anyone arrested 
imder suspicious droumstances '* in the oouniy Meath" might be killed 
offhand, unless he had in his company a '* faithful man of good name 
or fame in English apparel." 

Thus, after a conflict of more than four hundred years between 
Irish obstinacy and English statutes, the natives and their mantles re- 
mained in possession of the field. 

A French gentleman who came here soon after the Irish war broke 
out, and wrote an account of his travels through the country describes 
the dress of "the Irish whom the English call savages." Their 
breeches, he says, are a pantaloon of white frieze, which they call 
trowsers, and for manties they have five or six yards of frieze drawn 
round the neck, the body, and over the head. The women, he jobserves, 
wear a vezy large mantle, the cape beiog made of coarse woollen frieze, 
in the manner of the women of Lower Normandy. The traveller notea 
also that the Irish^ who import wine and salt from France, sell there 
strong frieze cloths at good prices.* Massari, Dean of Fenno, who, 
as secretary, accompanied the Papal Nuncio Binuccini on his embassy 
to Ireland, describes in his journal the dress of the Irish women. He 
remarks that the costume somewhat resembles the French mode. *' All 
wear cloaks," he says, '^ with long fringes ; they have also a hood sewn 
to the doak, and they go abroad without any other covering for the 
head ; some wearing a kerchief as the Greek women do." The Italian 
traveller does not fail to observe the sheep of the country, '' from which 
fine wool is made."f 

Another testimony to the estimation in which the Irish fleece was 
held in the 17th century is given in Drayton's allusion to the Leinster 

wool — 

" Whose staple doth excel, 
And seems to OTermatch the golden Phrygiftn felL" 

Already I have given Sir William Potty's observations on the 
domestic manufacture of woollen cloths later in the same century; 
but, d |9n^« of the people '' whom the English call savages," I cannot 
help calling to mind another sentence or two from the '^ Political 
Anatomy of Ireland." The writer says : the diet, housing, and clothing 
of the 16,000 families who are computed to have more than one chimney 
in their houses '' is much the same as in England; nor is the Frendi 
elegance unknown in many of them, nor the French and Latin tongues^ 

* ** The Tour of the French TntTeller, M. de la Boullsye le Oous, in Ireland, ▲.!>. 
1644." Edited by T. Crofton Oroker (1837). 

t Rev. 0. P.Heehan : '* The Irish Hierarchy in the 17th Centoiy." Fifth Editfoa 
(1877). 

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Irish Wool and Woollens. 363 

the latter whereof is yeiy frequent among the poorest Irish, and chiefly 
in Kerry, most remote from Dublin.'* 

Before leaving too far behind the Earl of Strafford's era, a word 
about Irish linen and his services to that trade may be permitted. Un- 
questionably he did much to improve the cultivation of flax. He invited 
Flemish and French artisans to settle in Ireland and devote their better 
skill to the production of superior linens. Furthermore, he embarked 
£30,000 of his private fortune in the trade. But it is a mistake to 
speak of his having '< introduced" the manufacture among the Irish, 
and '* set our women to spin," as we hear so often repeated. linen 
was, in point of fact, an article of clothing in very early times in 
Ireland. Lenas, or vests of linen, were worn by the higher classes of 
the ancient population, and " kingly linen" is a term met with in old 
poems. Among the commodities on sale in the 13th century at town 
markets and fairs, linen is mentioned. "Linen cloth f aiding" is one 
of the articles enumerated as being imported into Chester from Ireland 
in the 15th century ; and linen doth was sold at the same period in the 
Irish establishment at the Brabant marts. Extravagance in the use 
of linen in their apparel was more than once a subject of complaint 
against the Irish, and furnished matter, too, for legislation. In 1539, 
an Act of Parliament limited the quantity for each shirt to seven yards. 
Somewhat later, Spenser described the thick-folded linen shirts of the 
native Irish. 

Strafl^ord and his interest in the linen manufacture may be dismissed 
in the words of Dr. Smiles, who says it was " greatly to the credit of 
the earl that he should have endeavoured to improve the industiy of 
Ireland by introducing the superior processes employed by the foreign 
artisans ; and had he not attempted to turn the improved flax manu- 
facture to his own advantage by erecting it into a personal monopoly, 
he might have been entitled to regard as a genuine benefactor of 
Ireland.''* 

Despite of heavy duties, and Strafford's ominous hostility, the 
woollen manufactures of Ireland continued to flourish. Considerable 
injury, however, was inflicted on the trade by the wasting of the stock 
throughout the country during the dvil war and the Gromwellian 
devastations.! 

•"The Huguenots.*' 

t In ''WhHelook'B KemorialB'' (Quoted in "Memoirs of Wool"), under the 
dmteof April 0th, 1062, appears the following summary of news from Ireland: 
"Lettemof theForoet of the Fariiament about Bnisoorfy (Ireland), burning the 
com, and ereiy morning the houses they quartered in the night before ; killed and 
took many Iri^ ; that he was an idle soldier who had not a veal, lamb, poultry, or 
all of them for his supper." 

The CiTil War *< almost annihilated erery manufacture in Ireland, and that country 
which had so abounded in cattle and prorisions, was after Cromwell's tettUmmt of it, 
obliged to import prorisions from Wales."— Lord Sheffield: "Obsen^tionson.the 
Manufactures, Trade, and Fresent State of Ireland " (1785). Digitized by L3OOQLC 



364 Irish Wool and Woollens, 

Cattle and wool rose to a higli price in England owing to the ftdlore 
of the supplies from the neighbouring island. And yet, as if Ireland stiU 
possessed the glorious prerogative of youth, prosperity returned with 
the Bestoration, and the trading industries not only revived, but gave 
promise of advancing to a position of the highest importance. Energy 
and hope had a fair field for a few short years ; and then, the cattle 
trade received a fatal blow, and the wool entered on a new chapter of 
its history. 

For a long time previous to this date, an eztendye trade in the 
export of live cattle ^m Ireland to England had been carried on. 
Since the war had come to an end, these exports had greatly increased, 
and formed, in fact, a chief source of Irish wealth. On inquiiy it was 
found that at this period there had been about 61,000 head 
of great cattle brought over annually from Ireland. Bents having 
faUen in England soon after the Bestoration, the calamity was 
erroneously attributed to the importation of Irish stock ; and the 
landowners demanded that British ports should be dosed against 
the Irish cattle dealers. The House of Commons determined to 
cany a prohibitoiy Act in spite of the remonstrances of the Duke 
of Ormonde, Viceroy of Ireland ; in opposition to the Upper House, 
in which the Lord Chancellor of England and the Duke of York 
(afterwards James 11.) both spoke against the measure ; and in open 
contempt of the king, who considered the proceedings impolitic for 
England as well as prejudicial and grievous to Ireland, and publicly 
declared that he could not give his assent to so unjust a thing. To 
such an extreme was the animosity of the country parfy in England 
carried, that when the Corporation of London petitioned Parliament to 
be allowed to accept a present of 20,000 (or as some say 30,000) live 
cattle subscribed by the Irish people for distribution among the 
sufferers by the fire of London, matters were so contrived in the House 
of Commons as to oblige the Corporation to consider it a more prudent 
course to decline the gift.* 

The contest was not protracted. In 1663 an Act was passed 
absolutely prohibiting the importation from Ireland at all times of 
cattle (dead or aHve), sheep or swine, beef, pork, or bacon, under pain 
or forfeiture of one-half to the use of the seizor or informer, the other 
half to the poor of the parish where the said should be found or 
seized. Three years later this Act was made perpetual, with a daose 
introduced against horses. To make the ruin complete, butter and 
cheese were added to the commodities that in future should not be 
exported from Ireland to the parent country.f 

* See the ** Bigfath Keport of the Rojal Oommitnon on Hiftorioal Maniueriptt'* 
(1881). 

t Oarte, in hii great work, comments on this example of paternal goTemment. 
<* The Bngliih teem neyer to bare undentood,'* henys, «theart of goivmingtheir 

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Irish Wool and Woollens. 365 

Ireland was thrown into consternation by tliis enactment. Deep 
distress ensued. The price of horses fell from thirty shillings to one 
shilling, and that of beeres from fifty shillings to ten shillings. Des- 
pair OYsrwhehned the people ; but the Duke of Ormonde threw off the 
incubus, making " no doubt but Ireland would by time, peace, and in- 
dustry reooTor itself from the blow it now receiyedfrom England." In 
the development of home industries he saw the best resource for such 
a crisis. He turned his attention to trade in general, and to the 
manufacture of woollens in especial. Not that the wool trade, any 
more than the cattle trade, had been left unmolested by jealous inter- 
ference. It was clogged by yezatious disabilities. Wools could 
not be exported to England except by the particular license of the Lord 
Lieutenant ; and by a manoeuyre which can only be described as de- 
spicable trickery, Ireland was depriyed by the amended Navigation 
Act of 1663 of the colonial trade which she had previously enjoyed,* 
and which, in such a juncture as the present, might open up for 
woollens as well as for other commodities a profitable outlet 

Still, there were opportunities which might now be taken advantage 
of, and possibilities which might serve to animate and encourage all 
idio had the interest of the country at heart. The king, anxious to 
compensate Ireland in some degree for the injustice and injury in- 
flicted on her so much against his will by the ruin of her cattle trade, 
directed, by a letter dated the 2drd of March, 1667, that all restraints 
upon the exportation of commodities of the growth and manufacture 
of Ireland to foreign parts should be taken off, and this favour was 
notified by a proclamation from the Lord Lieutenant and council.t 

pronnoet, aod hare alwajs treated them in such a manner, at either to put them under 
neoeMity or eubjeet them to the temptation of easting off their Gh>Temment whenerer 
an opportunitj offered. It wai a series of this impolitic conduct which lost them 
Nonnandj, Poiotoa, Anjou, Guyenne, and all the dominions which they formerlj 
bad in France. • . When Bochelle, Saintee, Engousleme, and other towns in those 
prorinces, submitted to the kings of France, they took particular care to insert in their 
oapitul&tions an express article, that in anj circumstance or distress of the affairs of 
France, they should nerer be deliyered back into the power of the Bnglish. It is not 
a little surprising that a thinking people, as the Bnglish are, should not grow wiser by 
any experience, and after losing such considerable territories abroad by their oppree- 
rive treatment of them, should go on to hasard the loss of Ireland, and endeaTour tho 
ruin of a colony of their own countrymen planted in that, kingdom." — " life of James, 
Duke of Ormonde." toI. ri. 

Carte, an Bnglishman and a Protestant minister, died in 1754. He could not 
baTe dreamed that the rcTolt of the North American colonies would add another 
eiample of the misgoremment of the parent state. 

* For an account of the way in which this act of legislatiTe treachery was per* 
formed, see the speech of Lord North in the British House of Commons, Not. 13, 
1799. On that occasion the minister of the Crown exposed in dear terms ** the com- 
mercial restrictions of which Ireland so justly complained." The speech will be found 
in Flowden*s *< Historical BeTiew of the State of Ireland," toI. i. (1803). 

t Hely Hutchinson : •< The Commercial Restraints of Ireland, ^., ice.'* (177Q). 

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366 Irish Wool and Woollens. 

Thus, though New England was barred, Franoe, Spain, and Portugal 
. were rendered more aocessible. Again, if the Irish manufacturers 
could be taught to produce fine broadcloth as well as the friezes, stuffs, 
and serges for which they were already celebrated, English woollens 
might be entirely excluded. Sir William Petty, as we read in 
Carte, presented to the Duke of Ormonde a memorial for the encour- 
agement of woollen fabrics, ^' chiefly recommending the setting up of 
manufactures of fine worsted stockings and Norwich stuffs in all parts 
of the nation for making the best advantage of their wool and employ- 
ing their poor." The Council of Trade approved of this proposal, and 
the viceroy lent his aid, not merely by the bestowal of fair words, but 
by taking on himself both trouble and expense in canying out the plan 
suggested. He established a woollen manufactory at Clonmel, the 
capital of his county palatine of Tipperary, bringing over 500 Walloon 
families from the neighbourhood of Canterbury to cany it on, and 
giving houses and land on long leases, with only an acknowledgment, 
instead of rent to the undertakers. Also in Kilkenny and Carrick-on- 
Suir the duke established large colonies of those industrious foreigners, 
so well skilled in the preparation and weaving of wool.* About the 
same time a number of clothiers (master manufacturers) from the West 
of England, <* finding their trade decaying, removed themselves and 
their families over into Ireland, invited by the cheapness of wool and 
of livelihood." Some of the English immigrants established a manu- 
factory in Dublin, while others fixed themselves at Cork and Kinsale. 
In Limerick new vigour was infused into the trade by the arrival of a 
colony of sixty families from Holland ; and the manufacturing popula- 
tion of Wateif ord was increased by the accession of some Frenchmen, 
who established a drugget factory in the city. 

Capital being now freely invested and new markets found, rapid 
progress was made. The towns assumed a busy thriving air. Even 
the face of the country was changed ; for, in order to keep up the 
supply of wool, vast tracts of land were turned into sheep-walks. 

* The first migration of Walloon weayen to England took place, as already stated, 
in the reign of Edward ILL ; another settlement was made under f aTour of Elisabeth, 
who welcomed to her dominions the artisans of the Netherlands, driren out by the 
Duke of Alra's persecution, and granted her protection, at the same time, to thd 
French Protestant refugees. The Walloons on this occasion settled in large numbers 
at Canterbury and other places, and employed themseWes in manufacturing Tarious 
kinds of doth. A place of worship within Canterbury Cathedral was granted to them, 
and to the foreign refugees of all nations settled in the place. Numerous bodies of 
foreign artisans passed oxer into Ireland during the same reign, and settled in DubUn, 
Waterford, Limerick, Belfast, Ac. Bestrictions were imposed by Act of Parliament 
on the exportation of raw wool and woollen yam from Ireland, to this end among 
others *' that artificers may, by the abundance of the commodities within the realm, 
be allured to come into the same to work them within this realm, and thereby to giro 
ensample to others to use that trade to the great commodity and profit of the realm.'* 
Early in the reign of James I. other detachments of Flemings and French crossed 
OTer to Ireland and added new strength to the trade. 

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Irish Wool and Woollens. 367 

Naturally, the peasantry looked with anything but favour on this 
advanoe of trade at the expense of agriculture. They did not like 
being driven into the mountains, bogs, and woody parts to make way 
for the fleecy flocks. " I have myself," writes a contemporaiy, '' very 
frequently heard them curse the English sheep with aU the bitterness 
and rancour imaginable." Presently, when the war of the Eevolution 
burst over Ireland, the evicted agriculturists took an insane revenge, 
killing hundreds of the sheep in the fields, driving off the flocks of 
Protestant proprietors, slaughtering tmtil they had consumed all, 
and, to quote the same authority, producing by their reckless proceed- 
ings so great a scarcity in the country that, if the Irish army had not 
been plentifully relieved from France, a great number must have 
perished of famine. 

With the return of peace on the triumph of the Williamite cause, 
the wool growers and the manufacturers retrieved their losses with 
amazing rapidity. The security which a settled government seemed 
to promise animated the trading communities to renewed activity, 
and the losses which the country had sustained by the Cattle Bill 
were now fully made up. Although the woollen manufactures were 
almost exclusively in the hands of Protestant settlers, the general 
population benefited largely by the extension of trade. Catholic 
artizans, albeit excluded from trade privileges, had nevertheless their 
share of work in the inferior branches of the industry. Catholic wool 
growers followed their profitable avocations in the pastoral districts, 
finding in their old connection with France a ready outlet for any 
surplus store which might remain after the home demand had been 
supplied. Catholic traders in the towns flourished with the rest. '' So 
thriving and prosperous were the affairs of the Irish," says the autho- 
rity above quoted, ''that apprehensions were entertained that the 
eetatee of the Protestants would ultimately fall into their hands by 
purchase." In fact, some of the lands forfeited in the Bevolution war 
had been actually purchased back by the Catholic traders whose rightful 
heritage they were. Even the peasantry felt that a good time had 
come and gave up " spoiling the Egyptians " in the barbarous fashion 
they had devised. The late war and the later peace had brought about 
a change in the state of affairs which opened up for the poorer classes 
an opportunity of bettering their condition. The Protestant properties, 
as Matthew O'Conor observes, had become much embarrassed by dis- 
possession during the continuance of the contest, and the proprietors 
being imable to stock their lands after the peace, were under the neces- 
olty of leasing them to the peasantry at low rents, and for long terms 
of years. The peasantry thus acquired valuable interests, and became 
a rich, a sturdy, and independent yeomanry ; even that miserable race 
known by the name of cottiers, the working slaves of the Irish gentry, 
were in a more thriving and prosperous condition in those d|^, than. 

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3^8 The Last of an Old Friend. 

at any subsequent period. Most of them were in possession of a cow, 
one or two goats, and six or seven sheep * 

Thus, a new era seemed to have dawned— an era of healthy activity 
and remunerative industry. Well nigh two hundred years have passed 
aince then, and we who live in the distracsted Ireland of to-day are left 
to conjecture how different the state of things might be if the Treaty 
of Limerick had never been violated ; if " the ferocious Acts of Queen 
Anne" had never been promulgated ; and if the wool trade had been 
suffered to develop into a great national industry. 



L 



THE LAST OP AN OLD FRIEND. 
llfuenhed to the Lad^ of Rath Zw.] 

BT HELENA GALLANAK. 

npENDERLT old visions greet us, 

•*• Tinged with memories warm and bright,. 

Making quaint and pleasant pictures 

In the Chnstmas fire to-night ; 
Gleaming softly 'mid the ivy. 

Shining on the holly sprays, 
How they crowd and chase each other 

In the glowing embers' blaze ! 
Bed flames flash from floor to roof-tree, 

Prom the heart of an old friend, 
Nobly friendship's task fulfilling, 

Giving pleasure to the end. 
Once this yule log, crowned with beauty,. 

Seigned the gloiy of the Lee, 
Changes great have come and many 

Since thy birth, old Sally-tree. 

Dreaming youth beneath thy shadow 

Caught from hope such radiant beams,. 
That the fair glad world of nature 

Seemed reflected in its dreams. 
There, perchance, in riper wisdom 

Was conceived some burning thought, 
That hath blossomed into action, 

And a noble deed hath wrought. 

♦ "History of the Iiieb CathoUcs" (1818). 

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The Last of an Old Friend. 36^ 

In the huBh of munmer twilight, 

Bound thee gathered old and young ; 
Hand clasped hand in friendly greeting. 

Tales were told, and songs were sung. 
Last of all thy graceful sisters, 

Guardian monarch of the Lee, 
Youth and age and loye and sorrow 

Sought thy shade, old Sally-tree. 

Li the days when youth and maiden 

Sported on the village-green, 
When the ring of happy laughter 

Woke to life the rural scene : 
Then were rifled field and forest 

For the games of merry May, 
When night dews were on the meadows 

And the moonbeams cheered the way. 
Still didst thou survive the pillage 

Of the gay, mirth-loving past ; 
But e*en trees must own life's power^ 

And we mourn thy fall at last. 
One wild night the wind in anger 

Fiercely swept across the Lee, 
And with ruthless hand he levelled 

To the earth our Sally-tree. 

Ere the last red flame has quivered. 

And thy life's warm pulse is dead. 
Whilst the Christmas stars are shining, 

Ere the last bright beam has fled, 
I would cast this wreath of ivy 

On thy embers as they fade, 
And in simple verse embalm thee — 

Tribute for thy friendly shade. 
While thy ashes are yet fragrant 

Witl^ l^e memories of the past, 
Let us pray that friendship's blessing 

May be with us to the last ! 
When the early blush of summer 

Smiles again upon the Lee, 
Loiterers on its banks shall miss thee 

From thy place, old Sally- tree ! 

Chrutnuu, 1881. 



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( 370 ) 



DEAD BEOKE: 

A TALB OF THB WBSTBBK STATES. 

BT THK LATX DILLOH o'bRUM.* 
AX7TU0B OP "FBJkKK BLA.KC," " WIDOW MBLVII.LC*ft BOAROIlfO-HOUBB," ftc. AC 

CHAPTER IX. 
Bxnir. 
On the receipt of this letter Bobert set off to Lake Superior. It was 
getting late in the fall when he reached Jenkins' City, and most of the 
deluded inhabitants had made their escape. The new stores, erected 
in the one straggling street were shut up. With the help of a guide, 
Robert found out his property in Franklin-street, thickly settled with 
black stumps. 

As Eobert was well dressed and looking after property, the few 
poor inhabitants that remained in the place, because they had no means 
of leaving, supposed him to be one of the company who had seduced 
them into the wilderness, and scowled at him as he passed along. 

Jenkins' letter, plain as it was, had not prepared him for the blank 
failure that he looked upon, and with a heavy heart he went on board 
the steam-boat by which he came, to return. There were but few 
passengers on board ; the weather was what sailors term dirty, and 
sitting apart in the saloon, Bobert had plenty of time to think over his 
altered fortunes. 

It is wonderful how quickly we can adapt ourselves to novel and 
startling situations. Had Eobert M'Gregor a few weeks ago, asked 
himself as an abstract question : " What would I do should all my 
means be suddenly swept away ?" very likely his mind would suggest 
some such answer as, ** I would go crazy ; it would kill me.'* But 
there is a grand elasticity in the human heart, ere grief and sorrow 
have weakened its life pulse, and when Bobert's meditations were 
broken in upon by the sound of the supper-gong, he went to table with 
a good appetite, and with a cheerfulness surprising to himself, and 
joined in general conversation with the captain and passengers. As 
he sandwitched himself that night into one of the berths of the little 
box, called a state-room, he thought, " Well, I know the worst now, 
and must meet it like a man, Gt>d helping me ; I shall work for Lucy 
and the children," and with this brave resolve he fell asleep. 

I can imagine nothing more exhilarating than the change from the 
stifling little state-room to the deck of a Lake Superior boat, on a tine, 
dear morning. No thought of a long, uncertain voyage disturbs the 

^ He hat died at St. Paurs, Minnesota, since this tale began in oar pages. Though 
we are forced to postpone our tribute to his memorj, we must not delay to beg the 
prayers of our readers for his soul. He had a true Irish heart and a true OathoUe 
spirit May he rest in peaoc^JBi. I, M. {^ \ 

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Dead Broke, 371 

mind. No monotony of a boundless expanse of water ; no depressing 
thoughts of landing among strangers in a strange land; but the 
clearest and brightest of American waters under your keel, the Ameri- 
can flag over your head, America's broad expanse of shore and forest 
in yiew, and at eyeiy dent and nook, called a harbour, that the boat 
enters, the stars and stripes to greet you. 

Such a morning and such a scene greeted Bobert, when he went on 
deck the second day. The weather had cleared up during the night ; 
the air was bracing, without being at all chilly, the lake calm, and the 
blue sky without a doud. 

The boat had passed La Pointe, and the Apostle Islands were no 
longer in sight ; but as Kobert looked astern, he saw them rising, as 
it were, from the depth of the lake, and floating high up in space, while 
gigantic trees flung their shadows deep down into the clear waters 
beneath. 

'' That is one of our Lake Superior mirages," said the captain, as 
he noticed his passenger gazing at the phenomenon ; '' it is a sign of 
good weather." 

" And I, too,'' thought Bobert, his spirits reTiving under the com- 
bined influences of pure air, quick motion, and grand scenery, " I, too, 
accept it as a good omen." 

From the troubled waters of affliction, God's love draws us up 
nearer to Himself. 

Having disembarked at Detroit, he arrived in P on the even- 
ing of the eighth day since he left. He had never been so long absent 
from his family since his marriage, and with hurried steps he passed 
through the sbreets on his way to his home. 

When he came within sight of his cottage, two curly-headed little 
fellows rushed out of the garden, clapping their hands, and calling out 
at the top of their voices, " Papa ! papa !" while Lucy stood at the 
door of the cottage with baby in her arms. Eobert's heart gave a 
great leap ; catching up the children, he hurried forward, and in one 
loving embrace encircled his wife and child. Once again at home, 
with the excitement of the journey, the anticipation of return over, 
Sobert's spirits underwent one of those sudden revulsions peculiar to 
nervous temperaments. As he looked at his wife and children, the 
thought of his great loss, and of the uncertain future, pressed down 
upon him with such intense force, that he felt as if it would have been 
a relief to cry out. 

Lucy had noticed the change. Her love had detected every shadow 
as it came to her husband's spirit ; but she had resolved, if possible, 
to keep him from speaking of business this, the flrst evening of his 
return home. So she bustled about, and laughed and talked with 
such seeming light-heartedness, that Eobert looked at her with amaze- 
ment. But when the children were put to bed, Lucy entered the study 

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372 Dead Broke. 

where her husband was, and sitting down beside him» she drew him 
towards her until her head rested on his bosom. " I thought, Bobert/*^ 
she said, '' not to allow you to speak about business this evening ; but 
I find I cannot keep it &om your thoughts ; so tell me all, love; can 
there be anything worse than that which we know already? Speak^ 
love, my heart is listening to you." 

'* Nothing worse, darling," he answered, '' but evezything is con- 
firmed." 

" Very well," she said, '' all the better not to be left in suspense* 
And now, what is the worst, dear P That we are poor, Eobert ? my 
normal state,'' she continued, playfully patting his cheek. '' I shall 
be quite at home in it ; I shall feel as I do when I lay aside a fine 
dress, and, putting on an ereryday one, have a romp with the children. 
Poverty never caused me a sigh when I had to meet it alone. Now I 
have you to lean on, and you, dear, have me, and we both have the 
children to love and labour for. God ! forgive me for saying that 
we are poor ; — we are rich, Robert, very rich, and we will be very, veiy 
happy!" 

And there rained down upon his face, not tears — ^no, not one^ 
tear — ^buta shower of warm kisses. Her brave words, her tender 
active love, restored to her husband's mind its healthy tone. " He^ 
would set about doing something at once." What that something was,, 
was the difficult question that husband and wife did not discuss for the 
present. 

The next evening Mr. Flitters and his daughter Folly called* 
Lucy was very fond of pretty Polly, and the latter had spent almost 
all her time at the cottage while Robert was away. Since the marri- 
age of her sisters, her father seemed to understand and appreciate her 
much better than before, for her individuality was no longer hidden 
by their dashing fashionable airs. When her sisters left, Folly got 
nearer to her father, to the great satisfaction of both. So they often 
now took walks together, always with a sense of relief and pleasure, 
when they found themselves beyond the ken of that able woman, 
Mrs. Flitters. 

Robert had a sinc^e friendship and respect for the little man,, 
although he often laughed heartily at the way he had of dodging Mrs* 
Flitters' magnificence, to prevent his beibg altogether crushed by it. 
They were, in fact, intimate friends, and though so essentially diffe- 
rent in every respect, enjoyed each other's society very much. On this 
evening Flitters seemed unusttally restrained and bothered. At length, 
after polishing his head, until the excitement brought moisture to his 
face, he looked at Polly, and then at Lucy. The former seemed at 
once to understand the look, for she arose, and asking Lucy to accom- 
pany her for a moment, the two ladies left the room — ^the sigh of 
relief which accompanied their departure assuring Polly that she had 

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Dead Broke. 373 

understood her father. When the door closed upon them, Hitters 
•drew his chair dose to Robert ** You went up to that new city ?" he 
said. 

" City !" replied Eobert, bitterly. " Yes, a city with a few tumble- 
down shanties, black stumps, and a few houses built by speculators, 
for bait to catch gudgeons." 

*• Then you cannot get anything out of it ?*' 

*' No ; I was glad enough to get myself out of it." 

"And the bank?" 

" Every cent gone, my friend ; you must look not to give me credit 
At the store." 

•• What are you going to do ?" 

Robert twitched, and a frown came to his face. 

" You must not be vexed," said the little man, " if a Mend asks 
you what half the town is asking behind your back." 

" No, no, Mr. Flitters, I am not vexed," said Robert. " I know 
you mean kindly, but all this is so new to me. And now to answer 
jour question, I don't well know what I shall do." 

''You have no knowledge of the family grocery and provision 
business ?" said the other, in a kind of musing tone. 

Robert smiled. " No, no," he said, " although some fellows in 
my place might have an idea of doing something with rope." 

Robert had not perpretrated his poor joke with the slightest idea 
that it would be understood by Flitters. 

" Well, well," said the latter, appearing and disappearing behind 
his hand rapidly, " it is out of my line to advise you ; but until you 
settle your business you may be short of cash, and I just took the 
liberty of filling up this check ;" and he drew a fat pocket-book, from 
his pocket, and commenced to open it. 

*' Stop, Mr. Flitters," said Robert, catching his hand, and giving 
it a warm shake. " I am not in want of money as yet, thank you all the 
same ; and I promise, if I ever ask a man for the loan of money, it will 
be you. See, I can give you a cigar yet, and here is a lighted match 
— ^now draw." 

Flitters obeyed the order, and as he smoked, his eyes revolved 
from the brick house, seen dimly through the twilight, to Robert's 
face. At length a revelation seemed to dawn upon him. He jerked 
his thumb over his shoulder, as stooping over, he said in a low voice 
to Robert : " Maybe you think that she would know something about 
it?" 

" Oh, no, Mr. Flitters," answered Robert, smiling, " I am not, 
indeed, in present want of money ; and if I was, I could not take it, 
even from you, until I knew how it was to be repaid. Here comes 
Miss PoUy, that took such good care of my wife while I was away,** 
and Robert, meeting the young girl as she entered the room wi^h Lucy, 
^ook her soft, fair hand, and gallantly raised it to his lip«.by V^OOgLc 



374 Dead Broke. 

Eobert accompanied his visitors down to the garden gate that night, 
and as he took the honest hand of Elitters in his own, he said : '' Don't 
think I am ungrateful to you, or too proud either, but it is just as I 
told you.*' After they had passed away, Robert remained leaning 
over the low gate. " So," he mused, as a hot blush came to his face, 
'^ half the town is asking what I am going to do." His spirit yet 
unbroken, resented this interference in his affairs. He was learning 
his first lesson ; he knew that he was poor. He had yet to learn all 
that that means. 

Robert M'Gregor was to set about doing something at once ; so he 
had told Lucy, and so he had resolved. He had borne up against the 
reverses that came so suddenly on him, that had left him — ^who here- 
tofore never for one hour knew the want of money — ^penniless. With 
means amply sufficient for his wants, without any unhealthy craving 
for riches, monetary matters, heretofore, had the least place in his 
thoughts. It was more from a feeling that he should not be altogether 
idle and indifferent, in the midst of so much activity and enterprise, 
rather than the desire for wealth, which led him to embark in Jenkins' 
speculations. It was his early resolve always to keep secure a suffici- 
ency which would make him independent of the world, and allow him 
to carry out his own idea of happiness, that caused him to leave his 
ready money in the bank, rather than invest it in any business that 
might have a shadow of risk about it. But now, all his plans, antici- 
pations, fancied security were swept away, and he was rudely awakened 
from his tranquil dream of happiness, to be thrust forth to battle in a 
situation new to him, with a world yesterday all smiles, but now black 
and threatening. He had resolved to do something ; in the full strength 
of his manhood, with intellect and education, what was to prevent him? 
There was one thing, and a very serious difficulty it was— he had never 
done anything — ^and a whole year elapsed, in which the question of 
what he should do was almost daily discussed by himself and his wife 
without any practical results. 

At first these little family councils were full of hope. Lucy, who, 
when but a little girl, had commenced to support herself by her own 
exertions, would not have been a bad counsellor, but that love made 
her overrate Robert's qualifications. She had the most exaggerated 
idea of his fitness for anything he would undertake, and was i)oeitive 
that every description of person, from the President down, would be 
eager to avail themselves of his services. Indeed, she suggested to 
Robert, that he should see the President, and tell him «• just how 
matters were." 

Oh, the building of those castles in the air ! how loffy they were at 
first, then more modest, sometimes fading away, then reappearing — 
the plan devised, settled upon in the evening, becoming impracticable 
the next morning. And with these changing views came a oorres- 



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Dead Broke. 375 

po nding change of spirit, more perceptible in Bobert than in his brave- 
little wife, who, for his sake, would not allow the world to rob him of 
\&t smiles. And many a time when, with a heayy, foreboding heart, 
she went abont her household duties, her song and meny laugh would 
reach her husband's ears, and he would mentally say : '' Thank God,, 
poor Lu(7 does not fully realise the terrible position we are in." 

In this Robert McGregor made a mistake very common to the 
male portion of the htmian race, who, being of a coarser nature than 
woman, seldom understand or value their subtle heroism. 

When misfortunes besiege us, man shows a bold front on the battle- 
ments, to the enemy! But to woman is given the more delicate and 
difficult task of keeping up hope and faith within the garrison itself. 

Thus a whole year passed by without anything being actually ef- 
fected towards Hoberf s procuring suitable employment. 

Outside his professional caUs, Doctor M'Gregor had never mixed 

much in the sodeiy of P , and his son had still fewer intimate 

acquaintances. Indeed, when the latter thought over the matter, he 
found that Flitters was the only one in the town that he regarded in 
the light of a friend, and of all others. Flitters was the least able to 
advise or suggest anything outside of what he called, '*his line of 
businees." 

Flitters, as we have seen, o£fered to lend him money, but Robert 
liad wisely resolved not to add to his troubles and humiliations by 
borrowing, and in every other way Flitters was totally unable to serve 
him. But now Robert McGregor's resources were exhausted; 
the shadow of poverty was darkening his threshold; he could na 
longer debate at his own fireside the question. What shall I do ? He 
must go forth and ask of the world, what will you give me to do ? 

And he did, seeking employment first outside of P ^ but his not 

being familiar with any particular branch of business was a disadvan- 
tage he found it impossible to overcome. In dealing with strangera 
lie found it a most humiliating disadvantage, for people were not m* 
dined to look very favourably upon a man who had arrived at hia 
time of life without any business employment. Weaxy and disspirited 

he returned to F . Here, at least, he was known, and would not 

have to answer a long list of questionB; so he went among his acquain- 
tances. Some expressed regret at his altered circumstances ; others 
undertook to show how it was aU his own fault ; and others patronis- 
ingly pitied him. He was growing old'in humiliation. Already he had 
travelled such a distance from his old life, that it appeared visicmary, 
unreal when seen from the gray, sunless reality of the present. 

At length he was offered, and accepted the place of teacher in the 

pabUo school of P , at a salary of fifty dollars a month, and as the 

school was open for nine months in the year, his salary kept him from 
what is called actual want : that is, he was not compelled either to 

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376 Dead Broke. 

<K>mmit lughway robbery or go to the workhouse. He had still his 
cottage, and he dung to it as to a last friend. 

Indeed, property had depreciated so much in P for some years, 

following the year fifty-seven, that, was he willing to sell his home, he 
would have found it difficult to procure a purchaser. He had another 
advantage, greater than the home that sheltered him — ^he did not get 
in debt. He had been suddenly flung from independence, from refined 
contentment, to struggle with poverty. He had become familiar 
with its poor make-shifts, its ceaseless problem of how to make some- 
thing very narrow cover something very wide, its vulgar familiarity, 
its actual wants ; but he had escaped the demon that springs from the 
jaws of poverty, and crushes out the spirity the manhoodi the very 
soul of its victim — he was not in debt. 

Whether it was his pride or his strict principles, whatevM the 
motive that actuated him, it was to him, in this respect, a guardian 
angel, preserving him from the most poisoned arrow poverty has 
in its quiver. Thus toiling for those he loved, it could not be said 
that he was unhappy. No man of his nature and prindples, with a 
home like his to return to, could be actually unhappy. 

The sparkle, the light joy of life had passed away ; but its sweet 
love, purified, made patient and strong by trials, and unshaken faith in 
the providence of a heavenly Father, these still remained. 



CHAPTER X. 

MR. ICAHOV'S OOW. 

EoBSBT M'Obbqob had entered upon the third year of his teadiei^s 
life. The long summer vacation had just commenced, and after a 
warm day, Lucy and her husband, sitting in the cottage porch, while 
their children played around, were enjioying the cool of the evening, 
so delicious and soothing, after a hot parching sun. 

Of the two, Robert was far more changed in appearance. He had 
a careworn look very perceptible in his face, when it was in repose; 
his old elasticity of step was changed into a sober, and at times a 
weary gait ; and the pleasant lighting up of eye and features— that in 
other days, the simplest passing emotion would bring forth — seldom 
came now without an effort. But Luc^ was still bright and beauti* 
fuL Her early training had made her cheerfully accept work when it 
came ; constant emplojrment kept her healthy in mind and ibody, 
and could she but feel that her husband was happy, she would be so 
in her present humble, busy life. 

She had fretted most, immediately after her husband's losses^ 
because eveiything was vague and unsettied. But now tiiey had 
settied down to decent poverty, and as she told Bobertonoe, " she wis 

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Dead Broke. yn 

quite at home in it." A woman whose love is great enough to fill 
her whole being can never be unhappy, so long as the object of her 
love is left to her. Besides, poverty is always more evident in a 
man's dress than in a woman's ; I speak now of honest, indepen- 
dent poverty, that wears its own clothes. 

In cases of this kind you can almost trace its stages by the nap of 
a man's hat : Robert's was becoming brown, next season it would be 
foxy red ; his best coat was worn at the seams, with an unhealthy 
gloss on its sleeves. 

We pay our teachers about half the wages of mechanics, and expect 
them to dress in broad-cloth and fine linen, and they, from necessity, 
compromise the matter by appearing in seedy gentility. 

But Lu(^, in her neat, well-fitting, calico dress, that she made, 
washed, and ironed herself, might have walked by the side of a duke, 
and his titles would have been outranked by her grace and beauty. 
On this evening she looked unusually well; for an event had 
occurred during the day which brought a pleasant excitement to the 
inmates of Inverness Cottage, and Lucy, her cheeks rosy from the 
unusual exercise of milking a cow — that had a very prominent part in 
the excitement referred to — was now for the second or third time dis- 
cussing it in all its details with her husband. 

In the morning, a man driving a waggon, in which sat a respect- 
able-looking, middle-aged woman, drove up to the gate of the cottage. 
A fine cow, tied by a rope to the hinder part of the waggon, followed 
after. Pulling up, the man'got down and helped his companion to alight. 
Bobert, who was ^sitting at the window, concluded that they were 
people in from the country who had some farm produce to sell, and 
when they advanced up the garden walk, he went to the door to meet 
them. Both had pleasant faces, and as they drew near they 
smiled, as if they knew the gentleman who waited for them, although 
he could not remember having seen either of them before. 

The man was the first to speak. 

" I believe you are Mr. M'Qregor, sir?" he said. 

'* Indeed, an' he is," said the woman, coming in front. " I know 
him, though I haven't set eyes on him since he was a little boy. He 
is Bobert McGregor, and that's the sweetest name that ever sounded 
in my ears. How are you, Mr. M'G-regor, and how is all the family ?" 
and she gave Sobert's hand a hearty shake. 

There was such, thorough good-nature in her address, that he 
oonld not think of asking her who she was ; so he returned her 
greetings, and asked her in. 

'* Myself and my husband, sir, Tom Mahon, sir" — here Tom 
stretched out his big hand, and gave Bobert a mighty grip — <* have 
<xnne on a little business to you," she said. 

Vol. X., No. 107. 21 

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378 Dead Broke. 

So, thought Robert, as a change came to his manner^ there is some 
reason for this assumed good-nature. 

" Come in here/' he said, leading the way to the study, '' and yoa 
can tell me what you want." 

They had hardly entered the room, when Mrs. Mahon, who, woman- 
like, had cast her eyes all round, caught sight of Doctor M'Oregor'a 
portrait, suspended from the wall. With an exclamation she 
hurried forward, and standing before it, gave way to an impassioned 
burst of grief, characteristic of her race. " Come here, Tom," she 
sobbed, as the tears rolled down her face. << There is our friend, 
Tom, the friend of the poor; that's his picture; but he is in 
a better place himself, as high in heaven as the best of them ; for, 
sure, there is no one nearer to God*s heart than them who lore his 
poor." 

Her husband stood looking respectfully at the portrait for a little 
while, then he said: Hush, Mary, you're making too free, and 
may be annoying the gentleman, who cannot understand you. Quiet 
yourself, Mary, and tell him aU about it." 

Bobert, indeed, was greatly moved at so unexpected a scene, the 
sincerity of which there was no room to doubt, and at the simple 
words of praise bestowed on his father his eyes filled with tears. 

" You knew my father, then ?" he said. 

"Yes, sir," answered Mrs. Mahon, growing somewhat calm, and 
taking a chair, which Robert offered her ; *' I had a good right to know 
him ; he was the best friend I ever had. Indeed I could not help my- 
self, when I saw his likeness there ; you must forgive me for making 
so free like." 

*' I have nothing to forgive, Mrs. Mahon,'* he answered, " and I 
am glad to meet one who speaks so feelingly of my beloved father." 

Here Lucy entered the room, followed by the children. 

" This is my wife, Mrs. Mahon," continued Robert. 

Mrs. Mahon rose. " How are you, ma'am," she said, respectfully. 

Lucy saluted both her visitors. 

"And look at the beautiful children, Tom," said Mrs. Mahon, 
addressing her husband. " Give me what I gave you to keep." Tom 
Mahon dived his hand into his pocket, wrestled for a moment with 
something in its lowest depths, and then drew forth a paper parcel, 
and handed it to his wife. — " A little candy, ma'am," continued the 
latter "for the children; sure I knew I'd find them here. There, 
dears, divide it. Tom, look after the horses." 

Tom, who, just as anxious as his wife to pay this visit, had never-* 
theless made no calculation for a scene, seemed very glad to escape 
out of the room, and when he was gone, Mrs. Mahon, again resuming 
her seat, commenced an explanation of her visit. 

" I don't know, Mr. McGregor," she said, " that you ever heard of 

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Dead Broke> 379 

us ; but we lived near here in tlie Bearer Dam setflementy over fifteen 
years ago, and I often saw you with your father, when you were a little 
boy. We were very poor, Tom had no money to hire help to dear the 
land, and not being long from the old countiy, he was no great hand at 
the axe himself. So our clearing was only small, and the best support we 
had for the children was our one cow, and the cow died, ma'am— 
{turning to Lucy) ; — oh, would you believe it, ma'am, I gave up entirely, 
Ood forgive me, and got sick on the head of the eow. Well, my husband 
went for Doctor McGregor, your father, sir, for the poorer you were, 
sir, the quicker the doctor would come to you. He came, and good 
Ittck, happiness, and comfort came in along with him, and remained 
with us ever since. He came when there was such a heavy cloud 
resting on mj heart that it could not see Gk>d, and he raised it o£E 
with his good words and kind voice. When he told me that we should 
never forget that there was one above, who could make the darkest 
liight bright as day, I remembered that I had learned the same 
lesson, though said differently, from my own mother, at home ; but 
the hardships in the woods of America had driven it out of my mind, 
imtil your father's words brought it back. The next morning, ma'am, 
(turning again to Lucy) one of Doctor McGregor's best cows was 
standing at my door; and from that day to this good luck has followed 
US. I don't know, sir, if you ever heard anything of what I am tell<- 
ing you ?" 

''I remember something about it, I think," answered Kobert; 
"because a man named Weasel, who was mayor here afterwards, 
undertook to lecture my father in reference to this very incident, and 
received such a well-merited rebuke, that he was an enemy of my 
father from that time." 

'' WeU, sir," continued Mrs. Mahon, <' as I was telling you, good 
luck came along with the doctor into our house. To be sure, the 
&ie cow was a great help ; but it wasn't so much that, sir, as the new 
courage that came to Tom*8 heart and my own. Oh, courage is 
everything, ma'am. Tom made a fine clearing that year, and when 
he had all the brush burned ofE, and was ready to put in the com, do 
you know what he says to me, ma'am ? ' I wish, Mary, Doctor 
M'Gregor would come along until I'd show him this field.' Do you 
think, sir, but the same thought was in my own mind. I don't know how 
it was; that is, I can't explain it; but it seemed from this out, as if we 
worked to please the doctor, like, to show him that we were not unde- 
eerring of his goodness, to make his words, his promise of better times, 
come true. Well, five years after this we sold our farm here for a good 
price, and moved to a new one, near Grand Bapids, about thirty-five 
miles from this. We sold everything we had on the old place, but 
your father's present ; we brought her with us, and she died with ufr 
In this veiy room my husband and myself bid your father gooct-bye. t 

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380 Dead Broke. 

Mr. M'Ghregor, and wLen we told him, Mrs. MKSregor, ma*am, that we 
were bringing our good luck along with us, meaning the cow, you 
should see how he rubbed his hands together, and the pleasant 
smile that came to his face.*' 

Eobert M'Ghregor shaded his eyes with his hand. With what 
viyid distinctness he remembered the familiar action of his father — 
when greatly pleased — that Mrs. Mahon had spoken of. 

" I'm tiring you," continued the latter, " with my long story ; but 
I'll soon be done. We have as fine a farm now, Mr. M'Qregor, as 
you could find from here to there, and sixteen cows come into our 
yard to be milked. The children are good, and healthy, and able to 
help us now, and not a sorrow worth talking of did we know for many 
a day until we heard, a little while ago, of the misfortunes that had 
overtaken you, sir : how you were robbed of the honest fortune your 
father left to you, by a lot of yillains. The ways of the Lord are 
wonderful, blessed be his holy^name. Sure, if ever money was to have 
luck, your father's should. That's what we think ; but Ood is the 
wisest. Oh, that was a dark day to my husband and myself when w» 
heard of your great loss. ' Tom,* says I, ' we must go and see them. 
Patrick and Kittie are old enough to take care of the place while we 
are away.' * Very well, Mary,* says he ; ' I would walk on my knees 
to see them, if I thought it would do them any good.' ' It will do 
them good,' says I, 'it will do us good. In his own house, that 
sorrow has darkened, I will tell the son the same words his fathertold me 
in my poor cabin, and Tom, asthore, they will sound like a message 
from the good father to the child he loved so well.' " 

Mrs. Mahon paused, for her voice had become broken, and her face 
flushed and tearful. 

Silently Lucy moved over to her husband's side, and took his 
hands in both her own. On the hands thus clasped, the tears of 
husband and wife rained down warmly and gently. 
After a little, their visitor again spoke. 
<'It was Tom himself that thought of taking the liberfy of 
bringing the cow that's outside, as a present to you, Mrs. 
M'Qregor ; — to be sure, we owe it ; — ^but if s not that at all ; oh, no, in* 
deed,Mrs. M'Ghregor, we would never think of it at all, only she's grand- 
daughter to the one we got from the doctor ; that's it, you see, sir. 
Maybe, Maiy,' says Tom, the very morning he was tying the cow be- 
hind the waggon, 'maybe Mr. M'Ghregor would be vexed at our 
taking such a liberty.' ' Whist,' says I, ' he might, if we were rich 
folks, showing off, like ; but his father's son is not likely to mis- 
imderstand us.' And wasn't I right, Mr. M'Gregor ! And sure you 
will not be too proud to allow Mrs. M'Oregor to take this little present 
from me I If I made myself understood at all, you know that the 
favour will be all on your side." * ^ y 

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Dead Broke. 38 c 

"No, indeedyWMrs. Mahon/' answered Bobert, ''you must not 
think anything of the^kind; we will take your [present, a most yalu- 
able one at the present time, for we are very^poor, I thank you a 
thousand times for your visit,'' he continued, as he shook her hand 
warmly ; '' you have cheered me, and^strengthened my trust in Ood, 
and my faith in human nature." 

Tom Mahon ^ow entered the roam, and Robert, going up to him^ 
took his honest hand, while Mrs. Mihon, nodding vigorously, said : 

"It's all right, Tom." 

" And now, Lucy,'' said Bobert, " get our friends something to eat, 
while I show Mr. Mahon where to put up his horses. You will remain 
with us to-day, Mrs. Mahon." 

" No, Mr. M'Qregor, we can't," she answered ; " we only left 
young people in the house, and we must get home to-day." 

" Well, we will argue that point by-and-by," said Bobert, as he 
and Mahon left the room. 

By the time the horses and cow were in the bam, the former 
supplied the feed that Mahon had carried from home with him, and 
the children rescued for the sixth or seventh^^time from imminent 
danger, incurred by the wild manner they rushed around the horses, 
Lucy had a plain dinner — the best she could furnish — ^ready ; and all 
sat down with a good appetite, and enjoyed it thoroughly. But 
Lucy or Bobert could not prevail upon their visitors to remain the 
day. 

" They were too anxious about the houseful of children, they left 
behind them," Mrs. Mahon said. 

As she stood waiting for her husband to bring the waggon round, 
she turned to Bobert, and said : 

" Mr. M'Gregor, mark my words. Gh)d has tried you sorely, but 
He has not desertedyou. Good days are in store for you yet. A child 
of Dr. M'Oregor's cannot fail but to have good fortune even in this 
world, in the long run ; now mark my words, and promise that you'll 
come to tell the old woman of the good fortune, when it comes." 

"I promise, Mrs. Mahon," answered Bobert, with a cheerful 
smile. And then he thought of the words of the Psalmist, *' I have 
been young, and am now old ; and I have not seen the just forsaken, 
nor his seed seeking bread.'' 

And this faith, this beautiful trust in the special interposition of 
God in regard to each and all of his creatures, as clear to the 
uneducated mind of Mrs. Mahon as to the inspired David, the 
Agassiz, the Darwins, and material philosophers of the present day — 
each in his own way — ^would rob men of. What do they offer in re- 
turn P What do they offer for that faith in divine revelation, which is a 
pillar of light to guide us, a pUlar of strength to support us in the 
sorrows, trials, and vicissitudes of life? What do they offer in 
exchange P Nothing. 



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( 584 ) 



NEW BOOKS. 

T. Manual of St Michael the Archangel; or^ Quie ut Deusf By Fathir 

Sebastiak, Pafisionist. (Dublin : M. H. Oill & Son. 1882.) 
This holy work was probably inspired by its frontispiece— the statae 
of St. Michael, in the Church of St. Paul of the Cross at Mount Argons, 
Dublin — but that statue was placed there on account of the devotion 
entertained towards the great Ardhangel by the Founder of the Con- 
gregation of the Passion. The clients of St. Michael owe a debt of 
gratitude to the pious writer. 

H. An Exhortation to Frequent Communion. (London : Bums & Oates. 

1881.) 
This little treatise is translated by the Rev. George Porter, S.J.y from 
the Italian of Father Polaoco» of the Oratory. Jesuit translators gene- 
rally choose works written by members of their own Order, and veiy 
naturally. They know the training their own brethren go through and 
other guarantees for the character of the books that these are allowed 
to publish. When an English Jesuit translates an Italian Oratorian, 
the circumstance affords a presumption in favour of the special merit 
of the latter. 

m. My Little Prayerhooh. By the Sistees of Mercy, Limerick. 
Why do not the good Sisters allow this admirable little book to 
be supplied through the ordinary channels instead of requiring appli- 
cation to be made to themselves ? We notice only books that are for- 
mally submitted to our notice ; but we make an exception out of our 
wish to spread this excellent manual of childish prayer. It is not a 
work of genius like " Holy Childhood" (published by Charles Eason, 
Dublin), but many will consider this a more useful book for the young. 
We recommend them both most cordially to all who have charge of little 
children. 

17. Manual of Church Mistory. By the Bev. Db. Alzoo. Translated 
from the last Oerman Edition, by Dr. Pabisch and the Bev. T. S. 
Bybot. (Dublin :MH. Gill & Son. 1882.) 
This fine octavo volume is the fourth and last of the Dublin edition of 
Dr. Alzog's great work. It is a most learned and judicious compen- 
dium of Church History. In a more condensed form it was originally 
chosen (in the French translation) by the late Dr. Bussell, when Pro- 
fessor of Ecclesiastical History at Maynooth, as the text-book of his 
dass. The author has greatly enlarged and improved his work since 
then ; and the American trandators have increased its value by their 
account of the Catholic Church in America. A studious priest can 
hardly make a more useful addition to his library than " Akog." 

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New Books. 38s 

V. Otd in ihe Cold World, By M.F.S. (London: E. Washbonme. 
1882.) 

This is the latest, but, we trust, not tbe last of the pleasant and edi- 
fying yarns of a most skilful story-teller. In the name of Catholic 
story-readers (among whom, however, toe have no claim to be reckoned) 
ire beg leave to thank Mrs. Seamer by name, as we once in print 
attributed her work to another M. F. 8. beyond the Atlantic— Mrs. 
Margaret P, Sullivan of Chicago. Though the title-page mentions 
eight volumes of stories by the English M. F. 8., the etc. at the end of 
the list stands for fully as many more ; all interesting, edifying, and 
produced in a peculiarly readable form. 

TI. Duffy's Weekly Volume of Catholic Divinity . (Dublin: James DuflPy 
& Sons.) 

Foe two or three pence we have an excellent spiritual treatise, specially 
suitable for distribution. The first five of the series are " the Garden 
of Hoses'* by Thomas k Kempis, St. Theresa's "Exclamations of the 
SoultoQod," Father Ribadineira's "Lives of our Lord Jesus Christ 
and of the Blessed Virgin, and the " Life of St. Patrick." 

Til. Caieehism Made Easy : Being a Familiar Explanation of the Catechism 
of Christian Doctrine. By the Kev. Heney Gibson. (London: 
Bums & Gates. 1882.) 
Tras work must be of priceless worth to any who are engaged in any 
form of catechetical instruction. It consists of two large volumes 
admirably printed and arranged, furnishing much solid instruction 
and many very interesting stories and anecdotes about every item in 
the Catechism. It is the best book of the kind that we have seen in 
English. The very minute and clear table of contents prefixed to each 
volume adds very much to the utility of the work; it enables us to see 
at a glance not only a full summary of the matter of each chapter, but 
all the stories used in the illustration thereof. 
VIH. Outlines of English History from theBeyinniny to the Present Tims. 

By the Chbistiak Beothers. (Dublin": M. H. GUI & Son. 1882.) 
The practical experience of the compilers of these outlines is a guaran- 
tee for the special practical utility of a little book which otherwise 
could hardly make good its raison d'etre. The appendix contains a great 
many useful charts and tables. Few of us could stand an examination 
in the history of our own time. 

IX. The GirVs Booh of Piety at School and at JBome. By the author 

of " Golden Grains." Translated from the 45th French Edition by 

Josephine M. Black. (Dublin : M. H. Gill & Son. 1882.) 

This is one of the books for Catholic girls written by the anonymous 

author of the famous Paillettes d'Or, which have run through many 

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3*6 New Books. 

editions in the original French, and been translated in Dublin as 
" Golden Grains," in New York as ** Golden Sands," and adopted by 
the pious Protestants in London as '' Gold Dust." Perhaps part of 
the secret of this wonderful success is this writer's profound knowledge 
of schoolgirl nature drawn from his long experience as chaplain and 
confessor of a petmannat in the South of France. ** The Girl's Book 
of Piety" consists of 550 very closely printed pages, containing a vast 
Tariety of very interesting instructions and devotions. It has been 
specially approved by the Pope, four archbishops, and many bishops. 
The present translation, the only English one, has been made with 
admirable fidelity, clearness, and spirit. Happy they who have any 
part in the holy thoughts and feelings which these pages are sure to 
excite for many a year to come in so many youthful hearts most dear 
to the Heart of Jesus. 

X. Novenas of the Sacred Heart and of the BUseed Virgin, Translated 
from Father Cloriviere, JS.J., by the Ebv. James MTEiiOH, CO. 
(Dublin: M. H. GiU & Son.) 

These Novenaa are published in two separate little volumes. Their 
author was the chief link between the Society of Jesus before the 
French Bevolution and the Society restored in France. It may interest 
some in these holy littie books if we tell his story as we told it some 
years ago in the following lines : 

Tbe good old Father, Claud GloriTi^re,* 

Went to hif God some fifty yean ago ; 
Full many a holy deed and ferrent prayer 

Had filled hit busy lifetime here below. 
Serenely faded out his eTentide— 
Serener still the blessed death he died. 

Long years before, a keen-eyed, derer youth. 

He linked his fate unto that earnest band 
Named by Ignatius from his Lord. In sooth 

That was their darkest day» and dose at hand 
Loomed death and ruin : but the fearless lad 
Would fall with them. Was he a saint, or mod ? 

The dark day darkened. Ho who willed not spake 
The word which scattered all that gallant host. 

Our orphaned Novice thought his heart would break 
Betide the grave of her he lored the moet. 

MoTing his lips in meekest prayer, he weeps — 

" She is not dead, she is not dead*-she sleeps 1" 

* Eather CloriTi^re was one of the chief instruments in the restoration of the- 
Sodety of Jesua in France, in the beginning of thin century. — See F. Guides* Vie du 



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Nero Books. 387 

So pined he on through thote unholy jean 

With stealthy zeal and aolitary strife. 
In loyal trustfulness; nor dried his tears 

Till at the Voice Supreme she sprang to life. 
With joy he flung himself into her arms — 
His mother still, with all a mother's charms. 

With fresher, gayer zeal he laboured then, 

And with far ampler blessing, we are told, 
To force God*s law on lawless, selfish men — 

Till he grew bUnd, and frail and rery old. 
His toils now o*er, with heart serene and gay. 
He prayed the twilight of bis life away. 

The old man, blind and frail, would rise from bed 

Before the young and healthy were awake, 
And grope his way, each morn with feebler tread, 

Down to the altar-home, where, for his sake, 
The Lord, Whose will the winds and lightnings do, 
Had watched in loneliness the long night through. 

One early dawn, his face within his palms, 

He leans him so upon the sacred rails. 
Blessing Emmanuel in silent, psalms ; 

And o'er his sinfulness he meekly wails. 
Sinful ? The Sacramental Hand but now 
Was raised in pardon o'er his snowy brow. 

When thus too long the saint was rapt in prayer, 
A Brother whispered : " Gome, it is the hour." 

But other messenger was earlier there, 
And he had drooped as droops an altar-flower. 

They loTed him well, yet no one sighed or wept ; 

They could but envy ; in the Lord he slept 

XI. MtteeHaneous, 
Out of exactly twenty-two other new publications which have sought 
the acquaintance of our paper-knife this month, only three or four can 
be named at present. Messrs. Gill and Son have published Part 6 of 
their •* Irish Pleasantry and Fun," where Lover and Lever figure in 
their most rollicking mood. The same Publishers have issued for one 
penny a useful compilation by the Eev. 0. Maher, of the Marlborough- 
Btreet Cathedral, Dublin, " The Children's Mass, with morning and 
evening prayers, Catholic hymns, and Benediction of the Most Blessed 
Sacrament." The same with music will shortly be published for a 
shilling. In this context we may praise, not for the first time, Father 
Chiiron's '• (3hildren's Pictorial Mass Book " (Bums & Gates). '* The 
Little Book of the Holy Rosary," by the Dominican Fathers, is v 
cheap and very beautiful (Bums & Gates). From Chicago has come 
to us the eloquent and high-spirited address delivered by Mr. William 
J. Gnahan on St. Patrick's Day. Mr. William Dillon, brother to the 
member for Tipperary, has printed as a pamphlet his distinguiBh^ 



388 Denis Florence Mac Carthy, 

father's " Report to the Dublia Corporation on the Public Aooonnts 
between Great Britain and Ireland" (M. H. Gill & Son). Mr. Alex- 
ander Wood has translated well the recent famous Italian pamphlet 
on '' The Pope and Italy " (Bums & Gates). The last-named pub- 
lishers have given us on the eve of May, a very cheap collection, by 
Mr. Joseph Jenks of "Chants and Melodies adapted for the Litany of 
the Blessed Virgin, comprising various arrangements suitable for the 
most complete or limited choirs, with accompaniments for organ or 
harmonium." Finally, the same sweet Month of Mary is an appro- 
priate date for the issue of the new edition of " Madonna : Verses on 
Gut Lady and the Saints," by the Author of "Erin : Verses Irish and 
Catholic" (Dublin: M. H. Gill & Son). The eldest of these sister- 
volumes reached in two months that point of success which " Madonna" 
has reached in two years. Is this difference another proof of the 
badness of the times or only of the badness of the rhymes ? 







DENIS FLOBENCE MAC CAETHT. 



F those for whom telegrams are not ordinary pieces of daily busi- 
ness, but only received in specicd emergencies, there are few who 
are not a little startled at eadi brownish envelope that is placed in 
their hands, and who do not say to themselves, *' What bad news is 
this, I wonder ? Which of my friends is dead ?" It was in this frame 
of mind that we opened a telegram which awaited the conclusion of 
the Devotion of the Three Hours' Agony on Good Friday, April 7, 
] 882. " Our dear father was taken from us this morning. He expired 
oalmly and peacefully, resigned, and conscious to the last." Thus 
it was that the news reached us of the death of Denis Florence 
MacCarthy. 

Death, when neither sudden nor unexpected, is, nevertheless, 
almost always more or less a surprise. Kay, it comes unexpectedly, 
even when God in his mercy sends beforehand the preparation of a 
L'ngering illness. 8o it was with our gentle poet, yet not so far as to 
hurry him on his last journey without the help and comfort of that 
Sacrament to which he and the poet-priest Calderon consecrated so 
much of their genius. Indeed, in many of its circumstances, his de- 
parture from this world was most happy and fortunate— the place, the 
day, and other circumstances much more important than time or place. 

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Denis Florence Mac Car thy. 38j> 

€k)od Friday, the day on which our Saviour died for us all, was, as 
he was fond of noting, the day on which his mother had died — that 
'' Sarah MacCarthy," whose name is affectionately recorded oyer the 
spot in Glasneyin which has reoeived in trust the remains of her ten- 
derly devoted son. It was a happy omen that for him, too, death 
came on that sacred day, and also that it found him near enough to 
Olasnevin to allow of his body being borne thither by his friends in 
an hour or two of a bright April morning, instead of being brought 
from a distant death*bed, as had been the case with his darling son 
Florence. Poor Goldsmith's yearnings (which were, alas ! to be dis- 
appointed) about returning after all his wanderings to " die at home 
at last '' — ^this other Irish poet felt the same yearning, and it was 
gratified. He had for some years lived out of Ireland, returning, 
however, very frequently, tp breathe his native air; but six months 
ago he returned with the intention of leaving Ireland no more. And 
so he died at home at last, within sight of the holy convent-home of 
his only surviving daughter. Ethna* had gone before her father — 
and she who only in his verse was called Ethna, his sweet and saintly 
wife — and Lillie and Josephine; both mourned most musically in the 
pages of this Magazine. For him, therefore, as for most of us, death 
ought rather to be considered a meeting than a parting. 

It will often, during the coming months, be our duty, our privi- 
lege, and our delight, to use for the preservation of the fame of this 
true, modest, and refined Irish poet, the opportunities of more than 
one kind afforded by this periodical, in which, from its first conception, 
he took the liveliest interest. To its first number, in July, 1873, he 
sent, under the title of "Recantation," his answer to the frequent 
remonstrances of his friends, with regard to his excessive devotion to 
Oalderon and Spanish literature. 

"No more 111 yield to Calderon's spell, 
The Spaniih charm ehall chaiu no more ; 
Fair alien Fkncy, fare thee well ! 
Mj Song reeeeks itt nati? e shore.*' 

In its second number began a prose tale of considerable length, 
which he translated from the Spanish of Feman Caballero, giving it 
a name it does not bear in the original — " The Two Muleteers of 
MoUares." In the December of that bygone year, we contrived to 
group together contributions from a little family party of father, son» 
and dau^ter, in which competition the youngest certainly bore away 
the palm. lb. MacCarthy enriched almost all our subsequent volumes 

• Another name, transferred from his poetrj to the prose of life, is represented in 
Mr. Brendan Mao Ciurthj, •*priTate secretary to Judge C^Hagan, one of the poet's 
oldest and most intimate friends," says the writer of an admirahle article in the 
Frteman, of April 10. ** The Yojsge of Bt Brendan*' is Mr. Mao Garth j*s longest 



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390 Denis Florence Mac Carihy. 

with original poems, sucli as the sonnets to his friends, Eenelm Digby 
and J. T. Gilbert, and with many translations from his favourite 
Spanish, and two curious hymns from the Irish. Just before his death 
he spoke of publishing a version of a portion of the poem of the did, 
which will, probably, be found among his manuscripts, which are 
understood to be numerous and valuable. 

Most of our readers wiU have already perused in the daily and 
weekly press, more than one account of Mr. Mac Carthy's life and 
writings, such as the articles which have appeared in the Mhenaeum^ 
Tablet, and IrUhman, and especially in the Freeman^ i Journal of April 
10th, and the Nation of April 16th. The last-mentioned journal was 
particularly bound to honour the memory of the poet, for not only was 
he one of the most gifted of the brilliant band who originally won for 
it its historic name, but, even after the early generation of Natum 
writers* had vanished, "Desmond" sent it many a pleasant rhyme. 
Indeed, his humorous pieces are so abundant that he contemplated, we 
remember, collecting liiem in a separate volume. Pathos and pleas- 
antry are often dosely allied; '' Miss Kilmansegg '' sang " The Song 
of the Shirt ;" and, therefore, we need not be surprised at the merriest 
escapades of the Muse that haunts us with the melancholy, dreamy 
music of "Summer Longings." If we were confined to one sample of 
Florence MacCarthy's poetry, our choice would fall upon these exqui- 
site lines. 

Knowing what scanty reoognition modest merit gets from this 
noisy prosaic world of ours, one is amazed to find that, before the 
Month's Mind of our departed poet has come round, the pious task haa 
been vigorously begun, of securing that his coimtry shall hold him in 
perpetual remembrance. The advertisement pages, both at the be- 
ginning and at the end of otir present number, will inform our readers 
what progress has been made in this work, and how they may, them- 
selves, take part in it. The Editor of The Irish Monthly will receive 
the subscriptions of any who may find that mode of transmission 
convenient. 

Nothing more can be said now, but much more must soon be added ; 
for, henceforth, one of the most cherished functions of this Magazine 
will be to do justice to the memory of the good and amiable and 
richly-gifted, die pure-minded and true-hearted Denis Florence 
MacCarthy. 

« The writer of the obituary in the TahUt is mtBtaken in mentioning Sir Samual 
Ferguson in this connection, and also in bracketing Lady Bufferin with Ladj 
'* Speranza " Wilde. " The Bell Founder " was not published first, aa he saj^ in 
1857. being the opening poem in the exquisite little quarto of '* Ballads, Poems^ and 
Lyrics," which was the earliest of alL 



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{ 391 ) 
ERA BAETOLOMMEO, THE GEEAT DOMINICAN PAINTEB. 

BY B08A HULBOLLARD. 

AN interesting life has been lately published of the great Italian 
painter of the fifteenth centuiy, who set up his easel under the 
standard of St. Dominioky and gave his genius whoUy and solely to the 
service of God, from whom he considered that he but held it on trust. 
The book* opens with some beautiful thoughts on the Benaissance, from 
which we cull the following : — 

''It seems to be a law of nature that progress, as well as time, 
should be marked by periods of alternate light and darkness-— day and 
night. 

'' This law is nowhere more apparent than in the history of Art 
Three times has the world been illimdnated by the fuU brilliance of 
Art, and three times has a corresponding period of darkness ensued. 

** The first day dawned in Egypt and Assyria, and its works lie 
buried in the tombs of pre-historic Pharaohs and Nineyite kings. 
The second day the sun rose on the shores of many-isled Greece, 
and shed its rays over Etruria and Bome, and ere it set, temples 
and palaces were flooded with beauty. The gods had taken 
human form, and were come to dwell with men. The third day, 
arising in Italy, lit up the whole western world with the glow 
of colour and fervour, and its fading rays light us yet. The first 
period was that of mythic art ; the world, like a child, wondering 
at all around tried to express in myths the truths it could not compre- 
hend. The second was pagan art, which satisfies itself that in expres- 
sing the perfection of humanity it imfolds divinity. The third era of 
Christian art, conscious that the divine lies beyond the human, fails 
in aspiring to express infinitude. 

'' It is impossible to contemplate art apart from religion ; as truly 
as the celestial sun is the revealer of form, so surely is the heavenly 
light of religion the first inspirer of Art." 

Fra Bartolommeo was bom in 1476, of lowly parents. His father 
was a muleteer named Paolo, and his mother's name was Bartolommea. 
In those days there were no better roads through Italy than mule- 
tracks, and all the traffic between the different towns was carried on 
by horses and mule-packs ; so that we may suppose the calling of a 
muleteer was not necessarily a veiy poor one. His birth-place was a 
village near Prato, called Soffignano, and the boy, who was known as 

* Fra B&rtolonmieo. By Leader. Scott, Author of " A Kook in the Appennines.** 

London: Sampeon, Low & Co. 188L C^r\r\nii> 

Vol. X. No. 108, June. 1882. ^'S' "^' ^' ^<^8^^ 



392 Fra Bariolommeo. 

Baocio della Porta, lost his mother while a child. After his father's 
death, which happened when he was twelve or thirteen years of age, 
he was left with a stepmother and several small brothers who, strangely 
enough, looked up to the boy as their head and support. 

This fact is very suggestive in itself, showing how very early the 
little lad must have shown the earnestness and solidity of character by 
which he was as much disting^shed in after-life as for the splendour 
of his genius. 

He had, indeed, begun life early. At six years old we hear of him 
playing with his baby step-brother under the shadows of the old gate- 
way near his father's house, the house at Florence to which Paolo 
had retired from trade, having become the owner of a podere at 
Brozzi, which yielded six barrels of wine. But Paolo was growing 
old, as well as the two mules which we are told he cherished when they 
were quite past their work, and he was anxious to have his little sons 
placed out in the world as soon as possible. Benedetto da Majano, the 
sculptor, who owned a podere near Prato, had taken a fancy to the 
boy Baccio, and undertook to place him in the studio of CosimoBoselli 
as a pupil. 

Doubtless the child had, long before this was done, astonished 
father, little brothers, and friend by his bold drawings, perhaps first 
made on some white wall with a piece of charcoal, or even in the 
yellow dust of the high-roads with a pointed stick. At all events, when 
a small, delicate-faced boy of nine years, he was led, with a roU of 
drawings under his arm, into the studio of the artist, by the sculptor, 
Benedetto da Majano. 

At this same moment Michelangelo was a youth, and earnestly 
engaged in drawing the cartoons of the Sassetti chapel in the school 
of Dominico Ghirlandajo. It was a wonderful time for Art when 
little boys of lowly birth who showed a particular talent for drawing 
were taken from their play in the streets by distinguished men and 
placed at once under some gpreat master who could develope their 
powers. Once within the walls of one of these nurseries of genius a 
child was certain to become master of his own powers at the earliest 
possible age, and to lose no moment of the time for their exercise 
allotted to him here on earth by the Oreator who had given them to 
him. 

What interesting places, from every point of view, were these 
workshops of art our author suggests : 

"Amongst the thousand arteries in which the life-blood of the 
Eenaissance coursed in all its fulness, none were so busy or so impor- 
tant as the ' botteghe ' of the artists. In these the genius of the 
great Masters, the Pleiades of stars at the culmination of art in 
Florence, was either tenderly nursed, or sharply primed into vigour 
by e-truggling against discouragement and envy. In these the spirit of 

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Ft a Bartolommeo. 



393 



awakened derotion foundanoutlet, in altar-pieces and churcli designs for 
frescoes, wluch were to influence thousands. Here the spirit of poetiy, 
brooding in the mysterious lines of Dante, or echoing in past ages in 
the myths of the Greeks, took form and glowed on the walls in mighty 
cartoons to be made imperishable in fresco. Here the spirit of luxury 
was satisfied by beautiful designs for ornaments, dress-stuffs, tapes- 
tries, vases and ' cassoni,' &c., which brought beauty into eveiy life 
and made each house a poem. The soul, the mind and the body could 
alike be supplied at those fountains of the beautiful, the art-shops, or 
schools.*' 

At nine years old we find fiaccio beginning his apprenticeship to 
art in the art- shop of Cosimo. At first he had to submit to the 
drudgery which generally falls to the share of apprentices, and swept 
out the studio and ground his master's colours; which took a great deal 
of grinding, we may conclude, as Oosimo was noted for using quanti- 
ties of colour, and had astonished the eyes of the Pope some years be- 
fore by the brilliancy of his blue and gold in the Sistine Ohapel. In 
these tasks he was assisted by Mariotto Albertinelli, a boy of his 
own age, also a lad of genius, though of a different disposition. It 
was also a part of Bacdo's duty to run the errands of the workers in 
the studio. We are told that he transacted business for his master 
with the good nuns of St. Ambrogio, and carried him their gold florins 
in exchange for work done for them. He seems to have been a f ayou- 
rite with the nuns, who probably detected the piety of soul and 
nobility of purpose which even then were increasing every day within 
the child, preparing him for a holy and glorious career. It is easy to 
picture the saintly Mother-Superior sitting under the acacia-trees, in 
her peaceful garden, full of roses and lilies, roofed oyer by the blue 
sky of Florence ; and turning from her heavenly meditations to receive 
the slender lad from Gosimo's '' botteghe," the child with the spiritual 
eyes and intelligent smile. We can fancy how she would seize the 
opportunity to keep him with her for an hour, questioning him about 
his purpose in studying art, impressing upon his imagination the 
serious responsibility he had incurred towards God in having received 
so remarkable a talent, and sending him away at last with his hands 
full of flowers and his mind full of high and holy thoughts. 

Many visits were paid to ladies by the little Baccio at this particu- 
lar time of his life. It was then the custom for brides to have, as part 
of their necessary belongings, a handsome chest to hold their wedding 
clothes, and these chests were generally painted by the artists with 
graceful and fantastic ornamental pictures. Baccio was the messenger 
chosen to cany designs for approval to these fair damsels, and to 
transact aU business between them and his master. His grace and 
gentleness of demeanour, doubtless, marked him out as the fittest 
messenger on such occasions ; and we can fancy him the centre of 

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394 P^^ Bartolammeo. 

many a group of lovely smiling girls, who listened with wonder and 
amusement as tlie little lad, no bigger than the brothers they con* 
flidered as infants, explained to them the meaning of the designs he 
carried, and nawdy expounded to them some of the mysteries and 
delioades of art. 

Baodo's call to the special seryice of God is evident at each step 
of his career. Eveiy new occurrence in his young life seemed arranged 
by Providence, so as to lead his thoughts to dwell on the most lofty 
things. The first fresco at which he assisted was in the solemn 
cloister of St. Ambrogio, and the subject was the '^ Miracle of the 
Sacrament.'' We can imagine the awe and joy of the boy allowed at 
last to approach and take part in a work of such importance, so 
directly executed for Gbd. He laboured with all his young earnest- 
ness and enthusiasm at his task, sometimes pausing when left alone, 
to breathe gladly the saintly air of this place of peace, or to speak 
with some of tiie sweet-faced, white-hooded nuns, who came to see 
how the work was getting on, and to smile on him with their calm 
eyes. At times solemn and appealing music fell faintly on his ear, 
the echo of the nun's voices, as they chanted their office, or a bird 
sang to him from the cloister garden. And when evening came on, 
deepening the obscurity of the darkening arches, blotting out the 
work under his hand, and encouraging the nightingales to sing more 
freely, he would throw on his cap, gather up his brushes, and run home, 
through the purple twilight of Florence, to his father's house by the 
old gateway of St. Pier Gattolini, with heaven knows what seraphic 
joy and hope in his heart. 

Oosimo Eoselli, Baccio's master, seems to have begun to take life 
easily at this time, and the two friends, Baccio and Mariotto, often xe- 
ceived their instruction from the artist's godson, Piero di Oosimo, a 
young man of twenty-two years of age, who had already done some 
good work, and was much esteemed as a portrait painter. He was 
fond of classical subjects, and reckoned the best painter of the 
'* cassoni," or bridal linen chests, but his style was laboured and hard, 
and was as little pleasing to Baccio and Albertinelli as the over- 
ooloured paintings of Oosimo. The two little lads of genius had 
something to hear from Piero, who was veiy eccentric and of an ab- 
stracted and rather irritable turn. He would not listen to their 
boyish jokes, and little bursts of laughter would often annoy him. 
However, the two children, who were destined to leave names behind 
them in this world famous for all time, were perfectly happy in each 
other's company. They were almost entirely thrown together in the 
work of the studio from the first, and whether sweeping and cleaning, 
grinding colours, running errands, or sitting side by side at their 
art studies, they were the loving sharers of each other's joys and 
pains. Thus they formed one of those pure and lasting friendships 

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Fra Bariolommeo. 395 

of which 80 many ezist in the azmals of art, and bo few in tiie material 
world. 

For their inspiration they went to lugher founts than their teachers 
had ever dreamed of approaching. Piero brooded over daaaic myths. 
There is at present in the N'ational Gallery of London a picture by 
him, '* The Death of Procris," more pleasing from its rich glow of 
Cidonr than we should haye expected from the description of his 
work ; but the subject is unsatisfactory and wanting in good taste. 
The imagination of the two lads who sat under Fiero were filled with 
a purer and grander meaning for the labour of their lives. Leonardo 
da Yind was now fast rising into fame in Florence, and it is probable 
that Bacdo and Mariotto saw in him their real master, and lost no 
opportunity of studying his sketches and laying his precepts to heart. 
They had also, as stadents, perfect liberty to study from the frescoes 
of Musacdo and Lippi in the Carmine and the Medicean Garden in the 
Tia Cavour, then called Yia Larga. 

In the midst of Bacdo's earnest studies a burden of sorrow and 
care fell upon his young shoulders. His father died, also his little 
brother Domenico, aged seven years. Baocio was only twelve years 
old, and found himself looked to as the head of the family, the sup- 
porter and protector of his stepmother and her remaining babes. At 
ike age of fifteen he left Cosimo's art-shop and set up a studio of his 
own, in his father's old house by the gateway of St. Pier (fottolini. 
Kariotto joined him here as companion-worker, and thus the two lads 
began a partnership which lasted, with broken intervals, while Ma- 
riotto lived. We cannot but quote, even at some length, the picture 
of student life at that time (1490) in Florence, given us by our 
author : — 

" Oonsdoua that they were not perfected by Cosimo's teaching, they 
both set themselves to undergo a strict disdpline in art, and, friends 
as they were, their paths began to diverge from this point. Their 
natural tastes led them to opposite schools — ^Bacdo to the sacred 
shrine of art in the shadowed church, Mariotto to the greenery and 
sunshine of the Medici garden, where beauty of nature and dasdc 
treasures were heaped in profusion ; whose log^e (arched colonnades) 
gbwed with the finest forms of Greek sculpture, resusdtated from the 
tombs of ages to inspire newer artists to perfection, but, alas ! also to 
debase the aim of purely Christian art 

'' Bacdo's pure devotional mind, no doubt, disliked the turmoil of 
this garden, crowded with spirited youths : the tone of pagan art was 
not in accordance with his ideal, and so he learned from Masacdo and 
lippi that love of true form and harmonious composition which he 
perfected afterwards by a dose study of Leonardo da Yind, whose 
piindples of chiaroscuro he seems to have completely carried out. With 
this training he rose to such great celebrity, even in his early man- 
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396 Fra Bartoiommeo. 

hood, that Rosini calls him 'the star of the Florentine school in Leo- 
nardo and Michelangelo's absence,' and he attained a grandeur ahnocit 
equal to the latter in the St. Mark and SS. Peter and Paul of his 
later years. 

<< Meanwhile Mariotto was revelling in the Eden of Art, drawing 
daily beneath the loggie— where the orange-trees grew dose to the 
pillars— from the exquisite statues and 'torsi' peopling the shades 
with white forms, or copying cartoons by the older masters, which 
hung against the walls. 

'' The eustode of all these treasures was Bertoldo, an old sculptor, 
who boasted of haying been the scholar of Donatello, and also heir to 
his art possessions. He could also point to the bronze pulpits of San 
Lorenzo, which he finished, as proof of his having inherited a portion 
of his master's spirit. Bertoldo, having, doubtless, rendered to Duke 
Cosimo's keeping his designs by Donatello, which were preserved in 
the garden, obtained the post of instructor there ; but his age may 
have prevented his keeping perfect order, and the younger spirits 
overpowered him. There were Michelangelo, with all the youthful 
power of passion and force which he afterwards imparted to his works, 
and the audacious Torrigiano, with his fierce voice, huge bulk, and 
knitted brows, who was himself a discord, like the serpent in Eden. 
Easily offended, he was prompt in offering outrage. Did any other 
young man show talent or surpass him, revenge, deep and mean as 
that of Bandinelli to Michelangelo was sure to follow, the envied work 
being spoiled in his rage. Then there were the fun-loving Francesco 
Granacd, and the witty Bustici, as full of boyish pranks as they were 
of genius — ^what could one old man do among so many ? And now 
comes the impetuous Mariotto to add one more imruly member to his 
class. 

"How well one can imagine the young men — ^in loose blouses, con- 
fined at the waist, or in buff jerkins and close-fitting hose, with jaunty 
cloaks or doublets, and little red or black caps set on flowing locks, 
cut square in front — passing beneath the shadows of the arches among 
the dim statues, or crossing the garden in the sunshine amid the 
orange-trees, under the splendid blue Italian skies. 

^* We can see them painting, modelling, or drawing large cartoons 
in charcoal, while old Bertoldo passes from easel to easel, criticising 
and fault-finding, detailing for the hundredth time Donatello's 
maxims, and moving on, heedless or deaf to the irreverent jokes of 
his ungrateful pupils. 

" Then, like a vision of power and grandeur, Lorenzo il Magnifico 
enters with a group of his classic friends. Politian and the brothers 
Pulci admire again the ancient sculptures, which are to them as illus- 
trations of their readings, and Lorenzo notes the works of all the stu- 
dents who were destined to contribute to the glory of the many 



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Fra Bartolommeo. 397 

Medioean palaces. How the burly Torrigiano's heart bams within 
him when the duke praLses his compeers' works ! 

*' Sometimes Madonna Alfonsina, the mother of Lorenzo, and widow 
of Fiero, walked here, and she also took an interest in the studies of 
the youths. Mariotto, especiallj, attracted her by his talent and zeal. 
She comnussioned him to paint some pictures for her to send as a pre- 
sent to her own family, the Orsini of Bome. These works, of which 
the subjects are not known, passed afterwards into the possession of 
CflBsar Borgia. She also sat to Mariotto for her own portrait. It is 
easily imagined how elated the excitable youth became at this notice 
from the mother of the mag^ni£cent Lorenzo. He had dreams, of 
making a greater name than even his master, Cosimo di Roselli, whose 
handiwork was in the Sistine ; of excelling Michelangelo, of whose 
genius the world was beginning to talk : and, as adhering to a party 
was the only way to success in those days, he became a strong Pal- 
lesoo,* trusting wholly in the f ayour of Madonna Alf onsina. 

He eren absented himself constantly from the studio, which Baodo 
shared with him, and worked at the Medici palace ; but, alas I in 1494, 
this brilliant aspect of his fortunes changed. 

Lorenzo being dead, Piero de Medici was banished, the great 
palace fell into the hands of the republican Signoria, and all the 
painters were left without patronage. 

Mariotto, very much cast down, bethought him of a friend who 
nerer failed him, and whose love was not affected by party ; and, 
retaining to the house of Bacdo, he set to work, most likely in a re- 
newed spirit of confidence in the comrade who stood by him when the 
princes in whom he trusted failed him. Whatever his frame of mind, 
he began now to study earnestly the works of Baccio, who, while he 
was seeking patronage in the palace, had been purifying his genius 
in the Ghurch* Mariotto imbibed more and more of Baccio's style, till 
their works so much resembled one another that indifferent judges 
could scarcely distinguish them apart. It would be interesting if we 
could see those early pictures done for Madonna Alfonsina, and com- 
pare them with the style formed after this second adherence to Fra 
Bartolommeo. What his manner afterwards became we have a proof 
in the Salutaiion (1503), in which there is a grand simplicity of motive, 
combined with the most extreme richness of execution and fullest 
harmony of colour. 

This second union between the friends could not have been so 
aatisfaotoiy to either as the first pure, boyish love, when they had been 
full of youthful hopes, and felt their hearts expand with the dreams 
and visions of genius. Now, instead of the mere differences between 

* The PallaMhi were the partizans of the Medici, ao-called because thej took aa 
their standard the Palle, or BalU, the arms of that family. 



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398 Fra Bartolommeo. 

two styles of art, there were difPerences which much more seriously 
affected their characters ; they were daily sundering, one going slowly 
towards the cloister, the other to the world. Albertinelli had gained 
a greater love of worldly success and luxury. 

At this time Savonarola was attracting much attention in Florence 
by his sermons at San Marco. Lorenzo de Medid used to go and hear 
the prior expound Christianity near the rose-tree in the cloisters, and 
the great artists of the day were to be seen also listening with eager 
attention to the words of the eloquent Dominican. Lorenzo di Credi 
and Sandro Botticelli, both middle-aged men of a high standing as 
artists, attended the sermons ; also the Delia Bobbias, father and son, and 
many others besides. Our author remarks that Sandro, while listening, 
must have taken in the inspired words with the scent and beauty of the 
roses, whose spirit he gives in so many of his paintings ; while Baccio, 
on the contrary, feasted his eyes on the speaker's face till the very soul of 
it was imprinted on his mind, from whence he reproduced it in that 
marvellous likeness of Savonarola as St. Peter, Martyr, with the wound 
in his head, painted in the year after the preacher's martyrdom. 

Bacdo worshipped Savonarola, whose lofty suggestions as to the 
meanings and purposes of true art, sank deep into his soul. " Beauty 
ought never to be taken apart from the true and good. . . . True beauty 
is neither in form nor colour, but in light. Ood is light, and his 
creatures are the more lovely as they approach the nearer to Him in 
beauty. And the body is the more beautiful according to the purity 
of the soul within it." Certain it is that this divine light lived ever 
after in the paintings of Fra Bartolommeo. 

Albertinelli disliked all monks, and he and his friend had many 
discussions on this as well as on other subjects. One looked on 
Savonarola as an enemy to art ; the other regarded him as a heavenly 
reformer and purifier of the same. Bacdo knew that Savonarola had 
been himself an artist and musician early in life, and that the love of 
the beautiful was strong within him, only he would have it go hand- 
in-hand with the good and true. His dominant spirit was that of 
reform ; as he tried to regenerate mind, morals, literature, and state 
government, so he would reform art, and fling over it the spiritual 
light which illumined his own soul. 

Bacdo, boy as he was, was one of those who joined most enthusi- 
astically in the wonderful revival of religious feeling in Florence which 
emanated from the Dominican convent of San Marco. Burning with 
mingled love of art and religion, he stole time from his work, the 
labour that supported others besides himself, to join in the long pro- 
cessions of men and women who went singing hymns through the 
streets of the beautiful city, and to make one in the crowd that hourly 
filled the churches and knelt wrapt in devotion at the shrines at the 
street comers. And during that strange carnival, when there ware 

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Fra Bariolommeo. 399 

no maskers in the city, but white-robed boys went from bouse to 
oolleet the vanities for the burning, to fling into those flames which 
were the flames of a holocaust, when the white-robed boys stopped 
before the old house by the gateway of St. Pier Gattolini, where the 
two friends had their studio ; then the youth Bacdo, with sighs per- 
haps, for his beautiful work, came forth with such of his studies as 
he thought might come under the ban, and handed them over to the 
acolytes. Not so did Albertinelli, who raged and burned at the sacri- 
fice, and became more and more bitter in his detestation of monks. 

We need not enter fully here upon Savonarola's tragic stoiy, but 
it is impossible to speak of Pra Bartolommeo without at least touching 
upon it. We can imagine his dismay and anguish at the disobedience 
and downfall of him whom he had regarded as one inspired, and how 
he *' grieved with the awe-struck friars in the convent," while an 
enraged crowd mobbed Savonarola in the church, and the Medicean 
jouths, among them, doubtless, Albertinelli, marched in triumphant 
procession with torches and secular music to burlesque the Laudu 
And hurrying through these terrible scenes we are brought to the most 
memorable of Fra Bartolommeo's life : the day when, besieged and 
stormed in his church, Savonarola was arrested by the Signoria, and 
when Baodo fighting bravely against the cruel mob for his friend, and 
seeing sacrilegious hands laid upon eveiything sacred around him, 
made a vow on the altar-steps that if he lived he would take the habit 
of the Dominicans. 

While all these awful events were taking place, before and after 
Savonarola's fearful death, the youth Baccio was engaged in working, 
as often as his distracted soul would allow, at a great fresco of the 
Last Judgment, in a chapel of the Cemetery of S. Maria Nuova : flt 
subject for his perturbed spirit to dwell upon. Truly he, at this 
period, passed through the awful valley of the Shadow of Death. 
This work of the Judgment is described as possessing the painter's 
great harmony in form and intense suggestiveness in composition, and 
as being fuller of Christian religion than the works of painters who 
had gone before him m the delineation of this subject, and showing 
less of torture and punishment than it was at that time usual to pic- 
ture. In this fresco Fra Bartolommeo shows the Christian spirit; 
his faces look beyond the present Judgment, and instead of wrath, mercy 
is the predominating idea. The painter's reverence for Pra Angelico, 
and estimation of the divinity of art, is shown by Pra Angelico 
being placed among the saints of heaven on the right of the Saviour. 

But grand as the fresco is, Baccio now felt that even in doing such 
work he was not fulfllling his true mission in the world, and found 
himself drawn more and more to the thoughts of the Dominican Con- 
vent. One only brother was left to him now of all his family, and the 
dread of leaving Hero alone in the world restrained him for^ time y 

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400 The Freethinker^ '• Ergo Erravimus.^' 

from taking the monastio yowb. At last, however, lie placed the boy 
in the care of 8anti Pagnini, a Dominican, bequeathing him all his 
worldly goods ; and consigning his I/ut Judgment to Maiiotto Alberti- 
neUi to finish, he took the habit in the Conyent of S. Domenico, at 
Frato, on July the 26th, 1500, two yean after he had made the reso- 
lution of becoming a monk. 

A document in S. Marco proves that he was possessed of some 
worldly goods when he entered, among which were the house of 
his father at S. Pier Oattolini, and the podere at Brozzi. Having 
once given himself to God, he would have no half service; his 
brushes were left behind with all other worldly things, and here 
closes Bacdo della Porta's first artistic career. 

His sun was set only to rise again to greater brilliance in the future 
of Fra Bartolommeo, a name famous for ever in the annals of art. 

(To he eofUinued.) 



THE FREETHINKEES' JSBGO ERRAVniUS, 

BT D. MTTinDBOlC. 

FULL leave to sip the life and quaff the death — 
Is this the freedom of the God weVe lost ? 
Prate not of slavish f reedojn : dire the cost 
To us has been of your false shibboleth. 
" Away with gyves and shackles I" Freethought saith ; 
Ay, and let us on passion's gpists be tossed 
With pestilential vapours to exhaust 
Our lives ! Free poison was our every breath. 
On outspread wings the envenomed air we clave 
In glee, when lo ! our pinions down we strike 
In death ; disprinced from royal liberty. 
Base thralls are we for evermore ; ah ! save 
Our brothers from the lies that, spider-like, 
O'erweb the world : the truth shall make them free I 



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( 401 ; 



DEAD BBOEE: 

▲ TAUB OF THB WE8TEBN STATES. 

BT THS LATB DXUtOV O'SKDV. 
AUmOE OF "nUVK BLAXC," "WIDOW XSLYILL>*a B0>EDXXO*H0nSa,*' fto. Ao. 

CHAPTER XI. 

TTNOiiB William's will. 

Thb long months of yacation, during which there was no salary coming 
in, were a hard strain on Bobert M'Gregor, and taxed Lucj's economi- 
cal devices and housekeeping strategy to the utmost. 

The year before, at this ^time, Bobert sold his library, not getting 
one fifth of its yalue, reserving only a few books, precious from being 
f aTOurites of his father, and having notes in the latter's handwriting 
on their margins. Now they were compelled to sell different pieces of 
furniture, getting next to nothing in fnoney for articles, the removal 
of which made the house look so unhomelike, bare and poveiiy-stricken, 
though Lucy strove, by refixing and devising with a woman's taste 
and ingenuity, to cover over those poverty gaps in their home. 

It was a sad day at the cottage, when dire necessity first obliged 
its inmates to open their door to the second-hand furniture dealer. 
How carelessly he swaggered from room to room with his hat on ; 
while the children, wondering, frightened, and indignant, followed 
him. How he shrugged his shoulders, grimaced, tossed about, aod 
kicked, with his big foot, articles highly valued by those accustomed to 
connect them with home associations. Unbidden, he swaggered into 
the study, where Bobert followed him with hasty steps. 

'* There is nothing here," said the latter, '' that I wish to sell." 

"Well," said the dealer, with a coarse laugh, "that's lucky 
enough ; for I don't believe there is much in it that you could sell, un- 
less it was the old gentleman's picture there." 

Bobert's face flushed with anger. ** That is my father's likeness, 
sir," he said, in a stem voice. 

" Oh, no offence," replied the man. " But you see we sometimes 
get a good customer for one of those old portraits." 

" I can't see," said Bobert, " what value a family portrait could 
be, unless to the family it belonged." 

••Can't you see," said the dealer, "how it may be of value to 
people in search of a family ?" 

•« In search of a family ?" 

"Yes, in search of old family pegs, to hang their new gentility 

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402 



Dead Broke. 



upon. My father was in this business in New York, and he used to 
say that he sold dozens of families their ancestors. I sold your 
neighbour, Mrs. Flitters, a family portrait last week. A fine old 
gentleman, with silver buckles, silk stockings, and his hair powdered, 
and tied in a queue behind ; he's gone to New York to be cleaned. 
I'd bet the drinks that he'll come back a near relatiye. Well, if you 
don't want to sell any more of this old trumpery, I'll pitch it into my 
waggon, and pay you." 

It was a great relief to Bobert when the dealer took his departure; 
and with shune and sadness, the former looked around upon the dis- 
mantled house. Lucy went up to him, and putting her arm around 
him, said, '' There was too much old-fashioned furniture in the house 
altogether, Bobert. Wait until I tidy up things, and it will look just 
as well as ever." 

" Yes, love," he answered, fondling her cheek. " The old fashions 
follow the old times. How is this to end ? Month after month, week 
after week, day after day, we grow poorer and poorer. How is it to 
end?" 

"As God wills, Robert," she answered. 

"As God wills," he repeated. "Yes, as GK>d wills. You are 
braver and stronger than I am, Lucy. I would be ashamed to tell 
you how weak and cowardly I feel to-day." 

"You are not well," she said, as she remarked his colour come 
and go, and felt how feverish his hand was. "You are ill, Robert, 
and never told me a word about it." 

" Only a slight cold, Lucy. I had a dread of the remorseless way 
you would begin to doctor me, did I say anything about it.'* 

But the next day Robert was so seriously iU as to be unable to 
leave his bed, and in three days after the doctor, who was called in, 
pronounced his case one of low fever. 

" More will depend," he said to Lucy, who followed him to the 
hall-door, with anxious questions, " upon good nursing than good 
doctoring." 

Robert had said she was braver and stronger than he. Pray God 
that it is so ; pray Gt>d that she is brave and strong now ; for the 
darkest trial, one that she must bear alone, has come to her ; as for 
weary weeks, with an admirably calm exterior, that overlooks not the 
smallest trifle of patient, loving care,, she watches the flickering of 
that life, more precious to her than all else besides. 

It was at this time when friendship was such a boon, that Polly 
Flitters and her father proved themselves to be true and active friends. 
At the very outset of Robert's sickness. Flitters called, and putting a 
sum of money into Lucy's hand, told her to draw on him for flve times 
the amount if necessary. 

" You can do nothing," said the little man, polishing his head, and 



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Dead Broke. 

then blowing Us nose Vigorouslj, as lie saw Luoy's tears silently 
coursing down her cheeks, '* if you have money matters to bother you. 
Your husband would never let me accommodate him, an d he has ju st 
fretted himself into this sickness. Here is Polly coming over ; I must 
be off. Ck>od-bye, and keep up your spirits.** 

And Polly came over, not to pay a visit ; but to stay day and night 
with Lucy, during Robert's illness (and to do Mrs. Flitters justice, I 
must say that the young girl did this with her mother's full approba- 
tion). 

Folly attended to the house, and took care of the children, while 
Lucy remained in the sick-room ; or she took the latter's place when, 
worn out with watching, Lucy slept for a little while. How inexpres- 
sibly dear she became to Lucy, during those anxious days. 

The doctor said that good nursing was what the patient required 
most, and love bestowed this lavishly. 

Three weeks after Bobert had been attacked with fever, the crisis 
came on ; it was safely passed, and from this time he gradually re- 
covered. Oh, the delight of seeing him smile again ; of propping him 
up with pillows in an arm-chair, while Lucy put fresh white sheets on 
his bed, and then, laying him down, refreshed and cool, kissed his 
thin cheek, all the time prattling away, in low, musical tones, tremu- 
lous with joy, of pleasant trifles. 

It was fully six weeks before Robert was able to leave his room ; 
he had been attacked with sickness just at the dose of the vacation, 
and it was now the middle of October. Of course, another teacher had 
taken his place in the school ; he was deprived of the only means he 
had for the support of his family, and winter was coming on. Its 
outriders, the brown leaves, borne by the autumn winds, whirled by 
the window, from which he sadly gazed. 

Lucy had left him alone for a few moments, and now returned with 
some grapes on a plate. *^ Mrs. Hitters has sent you these grapes, 
Robert," she said, '' to coax your appetite." 

'* She is very kind," he said. ^' It seems to me that she has been 
supplying my appetite rather than coaxing it, since my recoveiy." 

'' And as for Folly and Mr. Flitters,*' said Lucy, with a grateful 
warmth, '^ never, never, can we repay them for all their goodness.'* 

''You are right, love. Sit down, darling, near me; I want to 
speak with you. How did you manage to get along whilel was sick?" 

'' Mr. Flitters, Robert, gave me all the money I wanted." 

'' So I thought, God bless him ; but we must pay him, Lucy." 

'' Of course we shall. But do not, Bobert, talk of business for a 
little while, until you have grown stronger." 

" It will do me good, Lucy, to tell you of a plan I have in mind." 

"What is it P» 

''We must sell this place for whatever it will bring,^pav Mr^ 

Vol- X., No. 108. 28 ^^^gte 



404 Decul Broke. 

FlitterB, and seek a new home furilier West What do you say, Utile 
wife?" 

^' Oh, it is just what I have been thinking of/' said Lucy, ''but 
feared to mention it, because I knew you loved your home so much." 

" Too much to live in it a pauper, Lucy." 

Now that Robert was convalescent, Mr. Flitters generally spent 
part of every evening with him, and to him Bobert disclosed his plan 
of selling his home. '' There is no demand or price for real estate 
here at present, I know," said Bobert " So that I cannot expect to 
get mudi for it ; but I suppose I can get something." 

'' The first thing you have to do, is to get well and strong," replied 
his Mend; '' then you can look out for a purchaser." 

This was so sensible an advice, that Bobert determined to follow 
it, and his mind being tranquillised by the thought of the new effort 
he was about to make, he gradually recovered health and strength. 

But in the early part of November, an event took place which 
brought about a sudden abandonment of all his late plans. 

Calling at the post-office one morning, he received the following 

letter: 

** Office of Hevst BiLuish, Attorney at Law, 

<* 21 Chambers-at., New York, Nov. 7, 1860, 
" Sir, 

'* I am directed by Mr. Geo. Liyingstone, executor to the will of the late Wm. 
M'Gregfor, to inform you of the death of your uncle, which took place in this city 
last month. Furthermore, I am instructed to say that it was the desire of the testa- 
tor that all persons interested in his will should be present at its opening, and as you 
are one of the legatees mentioned, and the executor wishes that you should have ample 
time to make preparations to attend, has fixed the 20th of next December, in the 
#/>^...rw>« .f »«« office, as the time for the opening and reading of the wilL 

" Your obedient serrant, 

"HxhrtF. Marsh." 

letter open in his hand, Eobert rushed home, 
le Lucy had read it, he had recovered breath so far as to 
cplain to her that his uncle had been very rich, and, no 
tn a large sum. Then Lucy, with her arms around his 
ed with joy: 

\erty our fortune has come to us. But why did you never 
this rich undo before ?" 

chill came to Bobert at these words, and he answered, in 
Lnged that Lucy looked up at him astonished. " Because 
out with my father and me, years ago, and the remem- 
cause has always been painful to me." 
)xi see, he forgave, Bobert I am so happy for your sake. 
1 tell Polly Flitters, and do you, Bobert, go at once, and 
news to Mr. Flitters, they deserve this from us. Hay I 
er ? What will Mrs. Flitters say ? We must ask them 
rer this evening." 

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Dead Broke. 405 

'' It can't be otherwise/' thought Bobert, when Lnqy had left him ; 
^' the old man forgave me before his death for the foolish trick Jim and 
Iplajed him. I wish I had been near him to have asked his forgive- 
ness." 

A happy party met at the cottage that evening. The good news 
had given Polly and Flitters, in a measure, as much delight as it had 
lU>bert and Lucy, and even Mrs. Flitters was sincere in her congratu- 
lations. 

Mr. Marsh's letter was read over and over again ; but the closest 
study could get nothing more from it than the precise information it 
•dearly conveyed. No hint as to the amount of fortune William 
M'Oregor died possessed of, or the sum left to Bobert; nevertheless, 
the ladies made their calculations, as to his legaoy, which did not fall 
under fifty thousand dollars. 

The next day Bobert answered Mr. Marsh's letter, and informed 
that gentleman that he would be in New York at the time appointed. 
Now, at the near prospect of being able to pay him back, he had no 
hesitation in borrowing money from his friend Flitters, sufficient to 
pay his expenses to New York and back ; butmore than this he would 
not take. So Lucy, for a full we^ before his departure, was busy, 
renovating the well- worn suit he was to wear, and she performed such 
wonders in this refreshing line, that Polly and herself concluded that 
'' Bobert looked just downright splendid/' as he stood upon the plat- 
Jorm of the rear car of the train Uiat was speeding with him to New 
York, and waved his hand to them in f arewelL 

When Bobert M'Ghregor reached New York, he lost no time in call- 
ing upon Mr. Marsh, whom he found a man about his own age, with 
«&ble, courteous manners. 

'' I have just received a note from Mr. Livingstone," he said, " in 
which he says the reading of your uncle's will has been postponed to 
the twenty-second, on account of the absence of some of the parties 
interested. Mr. Livingstone requested of me, Mr. McGregor, to bring 
you to see him, when you arrived. 80 if you are not otherwise en- 
gaged, I shall be ready to accompany you in a few minutes. Have 
you seen to-day's JS&rM f You will find the morning papers on that 
table ; just take a seat, and I shall be at your disposal in a short time." 

Bobert did as requested. Mr. Marsh's pen scraped along the legal 
cap, and the office dock gave forth its monotonous tick, tick. After a 
little, Mr. Marsh laid down his pen, went into another room to change 
his coat, took his hat from off the rack, got his natty cane, and draw- 
ing on his gloves, announced to Bobert that he was '' at his service." 

** Mr. livingstone's bank is but a short distance from here, on 
Broadway," said Mr. Marsh, fi» they left the office. 

'< He is a banker, then?" said Bobert. 

''Yes; did you not know that? The head of the Livingstone^ 
bank, one of the oldest banks in the country." ^'9' ''"^ ^^ ' 



4o6 Dead Broke. 

As ihey walked along, Bobert oould not help oontraeting Iiis ap- 
pearance with that of the dapper lawyer beside him ; for even two 
days' journey had made visible in his dothes some little dams that 
poor Luqy had so ingeniously concealed. " We well representy** he 
thoughti *'the poor client and his lawyer;" and so sensitiTe did 
tBis thought make him that, he imagined the people who passed them 
were saying the same thing. It was then with somewhat of a dejected 
air that he went by the long counter of the bank, with its tempting 
piles of gold, silver, and bills — ^behind wire netting — and entered with 
the lawyer Mr. livingstone's private office. 

The latter, a most pleasing, venerable-looking old gentleman, 
shook hands with Bobert cordially, and after asking a few questions 
as to his journey, he said : " Has Mr. Marsh told you of the little 
delay we shall be obliged to give you f " 

*' Yes, sir," replied Bobert. 

« This is how the matter stands, Mr. M'Ghregor," continued the 
banker. '' Tour unde always transacted his banking business with 
us ; although knowing him for years, our acquaintance was merely a 
business one. He has left a large amoimt of property to different 
institutions in this dty, and Mr. Featherstone, a trustee of one of them, 
has written to me, to say that he will not be in town until the twenty- 
first, therefore I have changed the time to the twenty-second. Your 
unde named me in his will as executor ; beyond this trust I am not 
interested, not at all, personally. This, of course, is not your first 
visit to New York?" 

« Indeed it is," answered Bobert. 

'' Oh, then, we are only giving you a little time to look round you. 
Will you do me the favour of spending the evening with me at my 
country place? I will be happy to drive you out after bank hours." 

*' I thank you, sir," replied Bobert, *' but you must excuse me." 

<' I regret it. Well, then, come in to see me often while you are 
in town, and on the twenty-second we shall meet at our friend Maz8h*8 
office, when I trust this business shall turn out satisfactorily to yoo.** 

While Mr. Livingstone was conversing with Bobert, his dear, blue 
eyes were studying with interest the appearance and features of the 
latter, and when his visitors left the bank, the banker stndced his chin 
thoughtfully, as he said : *' Poor fellow, he looks as if his legacy will 
not come amiss to him ; I hope it may be a good one." 



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( 407 ) 

THE WEDDING OF THE FLEA AND THE OBUB. 

Ihm the Spaniih o/Feman CahMero. 

BT THB LA.TB JHEStB Y!LOBBHOB IUlO OABTHY; 

If ISS Flea and Mr. Grub 
-lU Were wiahing to be wed. 
But, alas ! they could not many. 
Because they had no bread. 

Then a little ant ran out 
From his ant-hill, who thus said : 

'' My friends, you may get married, 
And I will give you bread." 

^'Thanks, thanks, good little ant, 

Your bread is nice and sweet ; 
But now we want some mutton. 

And where shall we get meat P'' 

A wolf was prowling through 

That land so wild and steep : 
'' My little friends, get married, 

And trust to me for sheep." 

** Thanks, thanks, to you, Sir Wolf, 
We've meat both lean and fat \ 

But now we want some cabbage- 
Pray, how shaU we get that P*' 

A cricket then leaped out 

From gardens that were nigh : 
" My little friends, get married, 

The cabbage I'll supply." 

" Thanks, cricket, many thanks. 

Your cabbage is not bad ; 
But now the wine is wanting, 

And where 6an that be had ?" 

A gnat from out a gourd 

Flew by and made a|sign : 
" My worthy friends, get married. 

And m supply the wine." 



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4o8 The Wedding of the Flea and the Grub. 

** ThankB, thanks, good little gnat. 

Your wine is good and sound ; 
But now a bed to sleep on, 

Say where can it be found ?" 

A hedge-bog, with the points 

Of his prickles all outspread, 
Beplied : ''My friends, get married, 

And rU supply the bed."* 

" Thanks, hedge-hog, for the gift. 

The last though not the least ; 
But still we can't get married, 

Because we lack the priest." 

A lizard gliding in. 

Said : '< Wed them on the spot ; 
For I will be the eura, 

And tie the nuptial knot.'' 

'' Thanks, thanks, a thousand thanks. 

The lizard priest will be ; 
But now we want the bride's-man, 

I wonder who'll be he ?" 

Then forth a little mouse 

From out a wheatnstack ran : 
" bridegroom, you may marry, 

And I will be your man." 

'' Good mouse, a thousand thanks, 

The bride'6*man thou wilt be ; — 
But now we want the bride's-maid, 

I wonder who is she ?" 

ry on the marriage state, well-known in the south of^Spain. An old 
long has the same idea : — 

" Be la laine d'un herisson 
Ma Mere poss^e un matelas, 
Et* elle le garde ayeo grand soin 
Pour quand je me marierai.** 
17 translate thus :— 

« A mattress made of hedge-hog's hair 
My mother doth possess, they say, 
And she preeerres it with great care, 
To gire me on my wedding day.*' 

Note by the Tranulator. 

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Michael Blake^ Bishop of Drotnore. 409 

Then forth a little eat 

From out the kitchen flew : 
" Oh ! I will be the bride's-maid, 

So wed, ye happy two !" 

The wedding then went on. 

But ere it was o'er, my friends, 
The bride's-maid eat the bride's-man ! 

And so my story ends. 



MICHAEL BLAKE, BISHOP OF DEOMOEE. 

BT THE EDITOB. 

Paet V. 

SnroE the pubHoation of our last instalment* of these biographical 
notes on Dr. Blake, which must not be interrupted so long again, the 
great kindness of his venerable successor in the See of Dromore has 
entrusted us with the diary which Dr. Blake kept during the year that 
he spent in Eome, re-establishing the Irish College. Many of the 
entries are of course mere business memoranda, which could not 
interest the readers; and many other items must be withheld on the 
opposite ground of being too interesting and personal. 

At one endjof this book, with its brazen dasp andleather cover, as strong 
as when bought for a shilling, 60 years ago, the good priest, who had just 
begun the fiftieth year of his life in his solitary Eoman ezile, sets down 
the numoirous days and hours at which the post goes out and comes in. 
At the same end he sots down every item of postage expenditure, and 
this account he kept faithfully from September 1824 to October 1828. 
Postage was no trifle in those days (in the Eoman correspondence of 

• In NoTember, 1881. See Irish Monthly, Vol. DC., pp. 376, 452, 661, 613. In 
th» interral we haye lost one reader who took the deepest interest in this slight record of 
the holj prelate. His nephew, Mr. John Keane of Sau Francisco, died three montha 
ago. His Christian life was not unworthy of the kinsman of a saint. Besides being a 
fenrent Catholic, he was a ferrent Irishman. To the last he deroted himself to the 
study of the old language of his natire country. He had just procured from the 
publishers of this Magazine a supply of all their Irish publications ; and his card of 
membership of the Society for the Preservation of the Irish Language wos on its 
way to him when God called him by a death, too abrupt but by no means unprorided. 
May he rest in peace ! ^ t 

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4 lo Michael Blake^ Bishop of Dromore. 

the Irish hierazbhjy the peculiarity of this aoooimt is, that each of the 
letters received seems to cost twice as much as those sent out. *' Letter 
to Dr. Murray " is 16 baiocohi, but '' letter from Dr. Murray " 33 
balocohi ; and under November 19, 1824, double postage (66 baioochi] 
is set down against a letter endosing address to .the Holy See in behalf 
of the Sisters of Oharity for obtaining the apostolic confirmation of the 
rules. 

Br. Blake's memoranda begins by stating that he left Ireland on 
the 17th of August, 1824, landed at Liverpool on the 18th, reached 
London 21st, Dover 24th, Calais 25th, and Paris 27th. Leaving Paris 
on the 2nd of September, he reached Milan on the 20th, Parma 22nd, 
Bologne 24ith, Florence 27th, and Rome at last on the ^d of October. 
We may be sure that there was no loitering by the way, and that this 
was at that date considered expeditious travelling. How would the f ol - 
lowingcompare with theezpense of one of Oooke'sor Gaze's " personally 
conducted " tourists)now-a-days ? " October 3rd, Eev. Mr. Callan and I 
paid the vettorino, Francesco Yentruoci, 960 francs, as per agreement, 
and four louis d'or, as a gratuity for having carried us from Paris to 
Bome, and for having furnished us each day on our journey with two 
meals. Our journey from Paris cost each of us 646 francs, 8j^ sous, in- 
dudingall incidental expenses." Twenty-f ourpounds for onefullmonth 
of continental travelling was not extravagant. Dr. Blake's travelling 
companion was the Bev. Nicholas Callan, the Maynooth professor of 
saintly and sdentifio fame, of whose work and character it is intended 
to furnish a sketch soon in these pages. 

The future Bishop of Dromore lost no time in setting about the 
work entrusted to him by the Irish bishops. The day after his 
arrival in Bome he gave to the printer lus address relative to the in- 
tended institution, which, no doubt, he had composed on the weary 
journey from Paris. On the 9th October he presented this address to 
the Secretary of the Propaganda, Monsignor Caprano (afterwards 
cardinal) ; and on the 13th he called upon him, to follow up the blow. 
The secretary blamed him for printing the prospectus ; '< because by 
giving publicity to our ideas, we generally defeat our own object, and 
two or three manuscript copies would have answered the purpose 
better." He then urged more serious objections on the score of want 
of funds for supporting such an establishment as Dr. Blake contem- 
plated. The Pope would give the house, but probably nothing more; 
and the bishops of Ireland would give promises, and, perhaps, would 
afterwards find it inconvenient to fulfil them. " I answered (says Dr. 
Blake in his Diary), that though I had printed my plan, I did not 
mean to publish it, but only put it into type for the convenience of his 
Excellency and the Secretary of State, and of His Holiness, if it should 
appear proper to be laid before him ; but I had no intention of making 
M generally known, for I appreciated fully his maxim, that in order to 



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Michael Blake^ Bishop of Dromore. 41 1 

suooeed we must not be more oommunicatiye than is neoessaiy; that I 
had been led by good authority to expect from the Holy Fatiier the 
looale for my intended establidmient, and considering its importance, 
I thought it reasonable to hope that he would not refuse assisting it, 
at least, with the goods of the late Irish College; that an income of a 
thousand crowns, with what I could obtain from Ireland, would enable 
me to commence it ; that in the beginning we should not be dis- 
heartened if matters were not altogether so complete as time and op- 
portunities might enable us to render them ; andfinally, that I had no 
apprehension whatever of not receiving the effectual support of the 
Irish prelacy." 

In this interview, Dr. Blake said he was about to write to his arch- 
bishop, and he wished to know what message he might send Dr. 
Murray with regard to the confirmation of the rules of the Irish 
Sisters of Charity. He returns to this subject frequently afterwards ; 
and we mention it here in order to claim for the subject of our sketch 
some share in that glorious work, as he had also a very special share 
in the institution of the Sisters of Mercy. To his relations with 
Mother Catherine Macaulay we shall refer hereafter. 

We shall confine our extracts from these memoranda chiefly to 
those which relate to the object of Br. Blake's mission to the Eternal 
Gity. We shall not dwell on small personal troubles, such as must 
have been caused by a certain servant, Giovanni, who was engaged 
on the 31st of October, at four crowns a mouth ; but, lo ! the entry for 
November 1st is as follows :— " We (namely, Dr. Oallan and Dr. Blake) 
dined at St. Isidore's (the Franciscan House), where a sumptuous 
entertainment was provided for us and other Irish friends. Giovanni 
left word at the Portiera that he would attend us no more.' One 
day's servitude seems to have been enough for the noble Boman. The 
next day, a certain Francesco is engaged at the same monthly wages ; 
and, as we hear no more of him, let us hope for the best. As the 
dinner has been mentioned at which Dr. Blake was a guest, it may 
be well to mention another, at which he played the part of host, at 
a cost of twenty-nine crowns. '' December 9. I gave a dinner to my 
English, Scotch, and Irish friends. I had at table Eev. Messrs. Walsh 
and MacOabe, of St Isidore's ; Bev. Messrs. Bice and Burke, from the 
Augustinian House; Bev. Mr. O'Finan [a Dominican, afterwards 
Bishop of Killala] ; Bev. Messrs. Gbradwell and Gillow, from the English 
College ; Bev. Mr. McDonald, from the Scotch College ; Rev. Messrs. 
Biggins, Jones, Markham, Fea, Don Angelo, Cucagni, Callan, and 
myself ; in all, seventeen. Bev. Paul M'Pherson joined us when 
dinner was nearly over." 

It is rather startling to find Dr. Blake recommended to wait on 
Cardinal della Somaglia at half -past fifteen o'clock, and then to return 
at twenty-one o'clock. The Italian clocks coimt the whole day of 

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412 Michael Blake, Bishop of Dramore. 

twenty-four hours, and seem to begin with five o'clock in the evening : 
for Dr. Blake says that Ih^ o'clock corresponded with our half -past 8. 

Br. Blake deserres very great credit and the gratitude of the Irish 
Church for the fiimness and perseyerance with which he maintained and 
carried out the idea of a distinct and independent OoUege for Irish 
students at Borne, in opposition to a yerj specious counter-project pat 
forward and urged most energetically by no less powerful a personage 
than Monsignor Gaprano himself, Secretary to the Propaganda. This 
dignitary contended that the funds likely to be forthcoming would be 
insufficient for the maintenance of a separate establishment ; and that 
for this and other reasons the wisest plan would be to appropriate to 
the use of the Irish students the Corridor dei Cinesi in the College of 
Propaganda. This would never have done. Though in those days 
no negro melody had as yet emphasised the expediency of '' paddling 
one's own canoe," it was abundantly evident to any person, under- 
standing especially the Irish character, that our students would never 
thrive in a mere Chinese corridor of a great college but would require 
a roof and a home of their own. 

It wiU be well to give in full Dr. Blake's memoranda of some of 
these negotiations. 

'^Friday, December 8, 1824. — ^According to appointment I attended 
at Cardinal della Somaglia's apartments in the Vatican. He was so 
much occupied with others, that, after waiting about an hour and a half I 
came away without seeing him. The Canonico Minichelli, his secretary, 
told me that he had been speaking last evening with his Eminence 
about my business, and in consequence of the opposition of Monsignor 
Caprano, it seemed to Him desirable I should arrange the pecuniary 
means I had mentioned to him, in such a manner as to have them 
available by calling on a banker here. 

" December 5. — I wrote to the Bev. William Yore, pressing him to 
have the money, for which I was here pledged to the Cardinal, for- 
warded to me with as little delay as possible. I also wrote to Most 
Bev. Dr. Murray, explaining the opposition Monsignor Caprano had 
shown to my plan, and the nature and particulars of the contro-pro- 
getto he had presented against me. 

'* December 10. — ^To-day, at twenty-one o'clock, I waited on Mon- 
signor Caprano. He bestowed some encomiums on Dr. Delahogue's 
book, De Eeeleeta, which I had submitted to I^ith at his request ; but he 
repeated his former assertion, that on some points he did not dwell 
sufficiently. He told me that in the next congregation he would 
endeavour to obtain a decision respecting the confirmation of the 
Constitution of the Sisters of Charity in Dublin, and the appointment 
of a Dean for the Dublin Chapter. 

*' Wednetdoff, December 15.— I waited at Cardinal della Somaglia's 
apartments. He was confined to bed by a cold, but able to attend to 



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Michael Blake^ Bishop of Dromore. 4 1 3 

necessaiy business. His seoretaxy, Canonico Miniclielli, told me that 
Ids Eminenoe bid him state to me that he approved of mj going to 
the Pope, and recommended that, as he was unable to occupy himself 
with my business, I should pray the Holy Father to appoint some 
other Cardinal for' that purpose. [The Diary affords some other indi- 
cations that Dr. Blake's persistence, in working out his business, was 
too much for the good old Cardinal.] The Canon then went with me 
to introduce meto MonsignorBarberini, the Pope's maestro di camera ; 
and Saturday, about half an hour before midday, was appointed for 
my visit to His Holiness [Leo XII.]. 

*' Saiurdoff, December 18. — I went to the Vatican about an hour 
befoze the time appointed, and was not detained more than a few 
minutes until I was ushered into the Pope's Chamber. After I had 
made the customary reverence, His Holiness bade me rise up. I com- 
menced my application by reminding him of the letters of recommen- 
dation and the plan which, through his Secretary of State, I had 
submitted to him. He said he was mindful of all that, and also of the 
plan which Monsignor Caprano had presented, and which, on account 
of the economy that would attend it, he would recommend to be 
adopted ; remarking, at the same time the heavy expenses which the 
buying of utensils, &c., would occasion. I replied, that no doubt it 
would be more economical, but certainly would not be so agreeable, to 
the prelates and clergy of Ireland, as a college distinct from the Pro- 
paganda, such as the English and Scotch have, nor would it have the 
same means of support if for the maintenance of its subjects it were 
to depend upon aid from Ireland. On this head he seemed satisfied. 
He then asked where I intended that our students should go for lec- 
tures — ^was it to the Gregorian or Boman College ? I answered that, 
as the Jesuits were not regarded favourably by the English Govern- 
ment, I thought it would be better to send them to the Sapienza. In 
this also he acquiesced, for the reason assigned.* He concluded by 
saying : '' Well, the two things shall be done — the house shall be 
giren, and the Cardinal Protector shall be appointed.'' I immediately 
kissM again his slipper, and with the usual ceremonies of reverence 
retired. 

** Deeemb&r 28, Tueedajf. — ^I waited on the Eev. T. Hanigan, at the 
Conrent della Pace. He arrived in this dty on last Friday, Christmas; 
Eto. He gave me four letters from some of my Mends in Ireland 
and the gold snuff-box which was presented to. me by my dear 
parishioners of SS. Michael and John's." 

* But erentually the Iriah Btudenta attended the Collegio Romano of the Societ;^ 
of Jeeus. 



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( 4U ) 



IEI8H WOOL AND WOOLLENS. 

BT A DJ80CBSIVX OOKTBIBUTOB. 

in. 

It could hardly be supposed that the passion for monopoly which had 
its triumph in the Oattle Bill was laid to rest, once and for oyer, by 
the consummation of that deed of iniquity. The jealousy of the 
country party in England may, indeed, have been pacified by the ruin 
of the Irish cattle-feeders, but the national vice broke out before long 
in another direction. Apprehensions were now aroused in commercial 
circles by the success of the Irish woollen manufactures. Beaaon 
might have suggested that the prosperity of Ireland could not in the 
long run be an injury to England, and that even in the wool trade the 
two countries might work in fair emulation, command new markets 
for their improved fabrics, and together carry on a splendid rivalry 
with the manufacturing nations of the continent. Such wide views, 
however, were not entertained by more than one man in the million. 
Unreasoning selfishness carried the day. As early as 1673, Sir 
William Temple, at the request of the Earl of Essex, then Viceroy of 
Ireland, publicly proposed that the manufacture of woollens (except 
in the inferior branches) should be relinquished in Ireland, as tending 
to interfere prejudicially with the English trade. In all probability, 
the Irish manufacturers of broad cloths would gain on their English 
rivals; and the improvement of woollen fabrics in this kingdom, 
argued the statesman, *' would give so great a damp to the trade of 
England, that it seems not fit to be encouraged here." 

Sir William's suggestion was not immediately acted on, but it 
showed the way the wind blew in high quarters. By-and-by there 
were ominous mutterings of the storm in lower levels; and in 
response to popular clamour several Acts were passed, early in the 
reign of William and Mary, restricting the exportation of wool and 
woollens from Ireland. However, elated by the success they had 
already achieved, the Irish clothiers disregarded all penalties, found 
means to elude the vigilance of the authorities, and got off their wool 
and woollens in spite of Acts and prohibitions This state of things 
could not continue long. Agitation in England became more violent 
Petitions from the excited centres of British commerce showed Parlia- 
ment what kind of legislation was expected from the representatives 
of the trading nation. Both houses addressed the king. 

The Lords represented that : " The growing manufacture of doth 
in Ireland, both by the cheapness of all sorts of necessaries of lif e^ 

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Irish Wool and Woollens. 415 

and the goodnees of materials for making all manner of doth," liaving 
made the king's loyal subjects in England very apprehensiye that the 
farther growth of it would greatly prejudice the said manufacture 
here, and lessen the yalue of lands ; they, the Lords, besought his 
most sacred Majesty to be pleased '' in the most public and effectual 
way that may be" to declare to all his subjects of Ireland, that '< the 
growth and increase of the woollen manufacture there hath long been 
and will ever be, looked upon with great jealousy by aU his subjects 
of the kingdom of England," ftc. &c. 

The Commons of England, in Parliament assembled : '' Being yeiy 
sensible that the wealth and power of this kingdom do, in a great 
measure, depend on the presezration of the woollen manufacture as 
much as possible entire to this realm," conceived that it became them, 
like their ancestors, to be jealous of the increase and establishment of 
it elsewhere, and to use their utmost endeavours to prevent it. *' They 
cannot without trouble observe that Ireland should of late apply 
itself to the woollen manufacture to the great prejudice of the trade of 
England. . . . Parliament will be necessitated to interfere to prevent 
the mischief that threatens. . • . His Majesty's protection and favour 
in this matter is most humbly implored," &c. &c. 

William IH., of glorious, pious, and immortal memory, discovered 
no sign of having been visited with any disturbing sentiment of indig- 
nation or pity, such as moved even the *' merrie monarch " in similar 
circumstances, though it is likely he may have winced tinder the un- 
generous pressure put on him by the Lords and Commons, whose 
nominee he was. ''The king replied briefly," says Mr. Froude, 
*' that the wish of Parliament should be carried out, and Ireland was 
invited to apply the knife to her own throat. Two letters of William 
to the Lord's Justices survive in Dublin Castle, embodying the words 
of the two Addresses, and recommending to the legislature the worst 
and most fatal of all the mistaken legislative experiments, to which a 
dependent country was ever subjected by the folly of its superiors."* 
Animated by the imminence of the danger the Irish manufacturers 
made what remonstrance and resistance they could. Their cause was 
defended by an array of pamphlets, showing forth how destructive to 
the interests of the united kingdom, how disastrous to the Protestant 
cause, how criminal in every sense would be the destruction of the 
woollen trade, which was tiie main*stay of the English colony, the 
"BSngii^l* garrison, the English religion, the English dominion in Ire* 
land! Appeals to the higher interests, the political integrity, the 
fanaticism of the parent country were urged in every mood and tense. 
According to these desperate champions of a cause which was every 
moment growing more hopeless, there would be no chance of saving 

• «• The Bnglkh in Ireland/' vol. L 

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4i6 Irish Wool and Woollens. 

Ireland from the grip of the Pope of Eome, or preserving the Britiah 
Isles from the dutches of the king of France, if once Hibemia's wool 
were saorifioed. High over the heads of the forlorn hope towered 
one of the representatives in Parliament of the University of Dublin. 
He, William Molyneux, took up his position on loftier ground. 
Boldly attacking Poyning*s Act, he impugned England's right to make 
laws for Ireland.* In his famous treatise '*The Case of Ireland's 
being bound by Acts of Parliament in England stated," he took care 
to say that he had not any concern in wool or the wool trade ; and, in 
fact, he left the question altogether on one side. However, no one 
doubted that it was the wool in danger that prompted this supreme 
effort, nor did he himself deny that it was the interference of the 
English Parliament in the woollen manufacture of Ireland which led 
to tiie publication of the book. ^' This," said the author, writing to 
his friend, the philosopher Locke, " you will say is a nice subject, but 
I think I hare treated it with that caution and submission that it can- 
not justiy give offence ; insomuch that I scruple not to put my name 
to it, and by advice of some of my good friends* here, have presumed 
to dedicate it to his majesty.'* Notwithstanding all his care, he could 
not be certain what effect it might possibly have ; for " God only 
knows what resentments captious men may take on such occasions." 
"The Oase of Ireland" created a sensation on both sides of tiie 
channel, excited the English Parliament to a higher pitch of animosity, 
and hastened the catastrophe. '< On the 21st of May, a member of 
the House of Commons produced the obnoxious pamphlet, read por- 
tions of it to his indignant fellow-members, and obtained the appoint- 
ment of a committee to report on its insolent defiance of the sovereign 
power of the English Parliament oyer Ireland."* Forthwith, the 
Parliament of England addressed the king, beseeching his majesty 
that the laws restraining the Parliament of Ireland should not be 
evaded, denouncing the *' Case '' as seditious and libellous, and 
prajdng the sovereign to discover and punish the offender. William 
did not concern himself to '* discover " the member for Trinity College, 
but the book, by order of the English Parliament, was burnt by the 
common hangman. 

Without delay the work of demolition then proceeded. After a 

* '* The particuUr statute Imown u Pojning's Kxk was one which provided that 
henceforth no Parliament should be held in IreUnd until the chief governor and 
council had first certified to the king, under the great seal, * as well the causes and 
considerations, as the acts thej designed to pass, and till the same should be approved 
by the king and council.* This act virtually made the Irish parliament a nullity ; and 
when, in after times, it came to effect, not merely the Bnglish Pale, for which it was 
originally framed, but the whole of IreUnd when brought under English law, it was 
felt to be one of the most intolerable griera tinder which this country suffered.*'— 
Haverty : •* History of Ireland." 

• Bourne : •* The Life of Julm Locke," toI. ii. (1876). 

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Irish Wool and Woollens. 417 

boodesB straggle on the part of a brave minority, the Irish Parliament 
gave effect to the king^s recommendation to the Lords Justices '' to 
avoid giving jealousy to England, by the farther maintenance of the 
woollen manofactare in the kingdom," and imposed duties amounting 
to a prohibition on the exportation of Irish woollens. Immediately 
after, an English Act of Parliament (10th 11th of William HI., ch. 
10. )y suppressed the manufacture in Mo. Irish wool and. woollens 
were not in future to be exported to any countries except England and 
Wales, from which places, as everyone knew, they were already virtu- 
ally excluded by heavy duties. Evidence of the activity of the doomed 
trade is afforded in the long list of prohibited articles embodied 
in the statute. Wool, wooUf els, worsted and woolflocks ; woollen 
yam, doth, serge, bays, kerseys and says ; friezes, druggets, doth- 
serges, shalloons, and other drapery stuffs are enumerated. To pre- 
vent any possible in&ingement of the new ordinances, penalties of the 
severest kind are imposed on all who take any part in conveying the 
raw material or the manufactured artides out of the kingdom. Any 
such commodities found on board ship shall, according to the statute, 
be at once forfeited. The ship itself shall be forfeited. The master 
of the vessel, every sailor on board, every other person knowing of 
the transaction shall be fined £40 eadi. Ships suspected of being 
engaged in the prohibited commerce, and wool and woollen fabrics 
intended for foreign exportation, wherever met, wherever dis- 
covered, may be seized by any person whatsoever. And, for the 
more effectual canying out of the law, it is enacted that two 
ships of the fifth rate, two ships of the sixth rate, and eight armed 
sloops shall constantly cruise on the coast of Ireland, particularly 
between the north of Ireland and Scotland, with power to enter and 
search any vessel, and if any Irish wool or woollens bound for f oreigu 
parts should be discovered on board, to seize ship, cargo, and 
-crew.* 

This sudden and merciless blow was followed by immediate conse- 
quences which all had foreseen ; but it also led to results which none 

* That other reaches of the island shore required as close watching as the Ulster 
s«!ahoard became apparent after some time; and in the reign of 6^rge I., "An 
Additional Act for the Bncouragement of the Woollen Manufactures of this Kingdom 
by the more effectual preyenting the unlawf dl exportations of the Woollen Manufac- 
turea of the Kingdom of Ireland to foreign parts," empowered the Admirality to in- 
cirsasa the affoetiTeness of the fleet of armed cruisers hanging about the coasts of 
QreatBritain and Ireland. OomprehensiTe as the aboye list of prohibited articles 
inay seem to be, it did not embrace all the fabrics of the Irish woollen manufacture. 
Wadding, for instance, and one or two other articles excepted out of the 10th and 
11th of William III. were afterwards specially prohibited in the reign of George II. 
For sometime it was the custom to allow each sailor to take with him from Ireland 
woc^en stolb to the yalue of forty shillings, whi^e each officer might take fiye pounds 
worth of doth : but this priyilege was subsequently withdrawn. ^^ . 

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4i8 Irish Wool and Woollens. 

oould haye predicted. The healthy industrial life of the papulation 
was at once paralysed* All feeling of security in the body politic 
vanished at this spectacle of the parent state derouring its own off- 
spring. In Dublin and its suburbs 12,000 English families were 
reduced to beggaiy ; and 50,000 families of the same nation, as weU 
as the settlers of continental origin scattered through the proyinoee, 
saw a like fate staringthem in the face. Flightwasthe best resource, 
whether for settlers or natives, who were in a position to escape from 
the blighted land ; and an exodus of operatives, variously stated from 
20,000 to 60,000, forthwith began, depopulating districts of the South 
and West, and inaugurating a migration from the North which con- 
tinued to flow to America all through the eighteenth century. A 
number of the Protestant weavers went to Gennany, and, being 
received with open arms, settled in states where their religion 
prevailed, and founded mauf aotories for the celebrated Saxon doths. 
Many of the Catholic artisans removed to the north of Spain, and 
began there a manufactory highly prejudicial to England. Multitudes, 
both of Protestants and OathoUcs, were welcomed by the King of 
France, who had lately established woollen manufactories in Picardy 
and elsewhere. Louis settled the Irish refugees in Bouen and other in- 
dustrial centres, securing the Protestants among them in the free 
exercise of their religion, and founding, with the aid of this armj of 
trained artisans and the wool which speedily followed them from Ire- 
land, a trade which England, from that day up to the present hour, 
has never ceased to suffer from. America wasthe refugeof the ruined 
Presbyterians of Ulster. They deported themselves in thousands, and 
founded settlements in the New World which they called after their old 
homes. There, in a new Derry, in another Donegal, in a transatlantio 
Ooleraine and Tyrone, grew up a generation nurtured on memories 
of a cruel wrong — a generation of ready-made rebels, who flocked on 
the first signal to the standard of revolution, and became the backbone 
of the insurgent army.* 

However, aU could not depart. A dispirited, disorganised, 
pauperised mass remained, to rear an idle, turbulent progeny; the 
curse of the towns and diies of the old land. Aghast at the spectacle 
ef desolation which met their gaze on every side, the Irish Parliament 
now addressed the throne with a view '* to give a true state of our 
most deplorable condition," and solicit some redress. Their delibera- 
tions were but a wail over the decay of trade, the forced emigratioii, 
the extreme want and beggary to which poortradesmen were reduced. 
But they had themselves prepared the way for the overtlmrtr of the 
trade, and their Judas repentance was all too late. What was all this 
to Queen Anne ? 

* Dobbt: ** JBeta J on the Trade and Improrement of Ireknd" (1729). ITAitj 
H*Gee : *< Hiftory of the Irish SetUert in America ** (1851), and other anthoritiei. 



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Irish Wool and Woollens. 419 

H all dooumentary record of tliis sad tiiue were lost, we still should 
have in Swift's inimitable pages the situation pictured for us of a 
oountry where '' one part of the people are forced away, and the other 
part have nothing to do." Says the dean in one of his sennons : " It 
is a very melancholy reflection that such a oountry as ours, which is 
capable of producing all things necessary, and most things convenient 
for Uf e, sufficient for the support of four times the number of its in- 
habitants , should yet lye under the heaviest load of misery and want, 
our streets crouded with beggars, so many of our lower sorts of trades* 
men, labourers, and artificers, not able to find deaths and food for 
their families." On another occasion he says, it is manifest that 
" whatever circumstances can possibly contribute to make a country 
poor and despicable, are all united with respect to Ireland.'' First 
among the causes of the general misery he places '' the intolerable 
hardd^ps we lie under in every branch of our trade, by which we are 
become hewers of wood and drawers of water to our rigorous neigh- 
bours." He dweUs on the growing poverty of the nation, on the 
injustice of refusing a people the liberty, not only of trading with 
their own manufactures, but even their native commodities : '* Ireland 
is the only kingdom I ever heard or read of, either in ancient or 
modem story, which was denied the liberty of exporting their native 
commodities and manufactures wherever they pleased, except to 
countries at war with their own prince or state ; yet this privilege, by 
the superiority of mere power, is refused us, in the most momentous 
parts of commerce." Similarly, when considering the causes of a 
kingdom thriving, this practiciE^ patriot places in the foremost rank trade 
and industry, and adisposition to value and encourage home productions. 
The first cause, he says, of a kingdom thriving is '' the fruitfulness of 
the soil, to produce the necessaries and conveniences of life, not only 
sufficient for the inhabitants, but for exportation into other countries." 
The second is, *' The industry of the people in working up aU their 
native commodities to the last degree of manufacture." And another 
is set down as *' A disposition of the people of a country to wear their 
own manufactures, and import as few incitements to luxury, either in 
deaths, furniture, food, or drink, as they possibly can live conveniently 
without."* 

Sage advices, not a few, has the dean to give to the people in 
reference to their conduct in this season of calamity and distress. 
They should renounce all foreign drees and luxury : those detestable 
extravagandes of Flanders-lace, English doths made of our own wool, 
&c. &a, which are not fit for people in such circumstances, any more 
than for the beggar who could not eat lus veal without oranges. The 

^ Serxnon W. " Letter to the Barl of Peterborough." ** A short View of the 
SUte of Ireland." 



Vol. X.. No. 108. 

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420 Ifi^k Wool and Woollens. 

women should be dad in ihe growth of their own country ; should be 
satisfied with Irish stofFs for the furniture of their houses, for gowns 
and petticoats to themselyes and their daughters ; and if thej are not con« 
tent to go in their own country shifts, may they go in rags ; the clergy 
should wear habiliments of Irish drapery, and the weavers should 
contrive decent stuffs and silks for this demand at reasonable rates. 
The lawyers, the gentlemen of the University, the citizens of those 
corporations who appear in gowns on solenm occasions, should use the 
fabrics suitable to their wants which the native manufacturers pro- 
duced. It were to be wished that the sense of both houses of parlia- 
ment, at least of the House of Commons, were declared by some 
unanimous and hearty votes against wearing any silk or woollen 
manufactures imported from abroad : eveiy senator, noble or plebeian, 
giving his honour that neither himself, nor any of his family, would, 
in their dress or furniture of their houses, make use of anything except 
what was of the growth and manufacture of this kingdom ; and that 
they would use the utmost of their power, influence, and credit, to pre- 
vail on their tenants, dependants, and friends, to follow their example. 
Anyhow, *' let a firm resolution betaken, by male and female, never to 
appear with one single shred that comes from England ; and let all the 
people say, AfMn^ As for the weavers and traders, they should im- 
prove the cloths and stuffs of the nation into all possible degrees of 
fineness and colours, and engage not to play the knave, according^ to 
their custom, by exacting and imposing upon the nobility and geatry, 
either as to the prices or the goodness.* 

Anonymously, in 1 720, Swift entered into the strife of Irish politics^ 
armed with his famous tract, '' A Proposal for the Universal Use of 
Irish Manufacture, in Cloaths and Furniture of Houses, &c., utterly 
rejecting and renouncing everything wearable that comes from Eng- 
land." To this day the production is read with delight as an example 
of the master's trenchant style. But the fierce satire of the literary 
composition is, in the apprehension of nineteenth centuxy readers 
cast into the shade by the grim irony of the incidents which its publi- 
cation gave rise to. When, as Swift himself afterwards related, a 
discourse was published endeavouring to persuade our people to wear 
their own woollen manufactures, full of the most dutiful expressions 
to the sovereign, and without the least party hint, it was termed 
filing in ih0 km^tface. The government considered the proposal as a 
sort of leze-majesiy, and the printer, Waters, was seized and forced to 
give great bail. Nine times the jury who tried the case were sent 
back, until they were under the necessity of leaving the prisoner to the 

* " A Proposal for the UniTersal Use of Irish l£anufaetiires.** '* The Dnpier's 
Letters." ** Answer to Letters of Unknown Persona." "A Letter to the Arch- 
biabop of Dublin, ooncermng the WeaTere." '* A Propoaal that all the Ladies and 
Women of Ireland should appear constantly in Irish Manufactures." 



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Irish Woolaud Woollens. 421 

mercy of the coini, by a special verdict; the judge on the bench in- 
Toking Ood for his witness, when he asserted that the author's design 
was to bring in the Pretender ! The cause, continues Swift» was so 
odious and unpopular, the trial of the verdict was deferred from one 
term to another, until upon the Duke of Grafton's, the Lord Lieutenant's 
arrival, His Grace after mature advice, and permission from England, 
was pleased to grant a noli prosequi.'* " In the midst of this prosecu- 
tion about 1,500 weavers were forced to beg their bread, and had a 
general contribution made for their relief, which just served to make 
them drunk for a week ; and then they were forced to turn rogues, or 
strolling beggars, or to leave the kingdom."! About four years later 
the Lord Lieutenant and Council issued a proclamation offering three 
hundred pounds for the discovery of the author of the '' Drapier's 
Letters." Harding, the printer of these obnoxious productions, was 
tried before the Chief Justice ; but the jury would not find the bill, 
nor would any person discover the author. Again, when a London 
journalist reprinted "A Short View of the State of Ireland," a 
lengthened prosecution of the printers was the consequence. Swift, 
referring to the vexations the printers had to undergo, takes occasion, 
in his characteristic way, to show how dangerous it is for the best- 
meaning person to write one syllable in defence of his country, or 
discover the miserable condition it is in. So much is this the case, 
continues he, that, " although I am often without money in my pocket, 
I dare not own it in some company, for fear of being thought dis- 
affected." 

By no means was it all talk with the Dean of St. Patrick's. He ex- 
pended both time and money in visiting and assisting distressed artisans 
without any distinction of creed. Five hundred pounds a year it was 
his wont to lend out in small portions without interest to necessitous 
but honest and diligent tradesmen ; and at one time he had the grati- 
fication of believing that he had recovered two hundred families in the 
city from ruin. Frugality for the sake of others he knew how to 
practise. He would often walk rather than ride, and then would say 
he had earned a shilling or eighteen pence, which he had a right to do 
what he pleased with, and could expend on his favourite charities- 
The weavers considered him their special patron and legislator, and 
frequently came in a body to receive his advice in settling the rates 
of their stuffs and the wages of their journeymen. In every sense 
the J were his neighbours, for the industrial population of Dublin were 
massed round St. Patrick's Cathedral, and -still inhabited the Coombe, 
Spitalfields, Weavers' Square, New-street, and other localities which 
had been flourishing centres before the suppression of the woollen 

• Letter from Swift to Pope. ** Drapier's Letters." 

t " Proposal that the Ladiee and Women of Ireland should appear constantly in 

iriA M««f~*««*" ^ g^,,^^^ ^^ Google 



432 Irish Wool and Woollens. 

trade. A notable part of the population were of Huguenot origin, and 
places of worship, with a French seryice, had been provided for them. 
One of these was in Peter-street, and another was under the roof of 
St. Patrick's, the ancient Lady Ohapel of the Cathedral being, in fact, 
at that time and for long after, the French church of the locality. It 
was Swift's habit to attend afternoon service here every Sunday.* 
SteUa, who '' loved Ireland much better than the generality of those 
who owe both their birth and riches to it," and detested the tyranny 
and injustice of England in the treatment of this kingdom," also 
showed a good example of liberality and judgment in disbursing 
charity, and of simplicity in her habits and attire. The same pen 
that so well knew how to lash and scath, has traced with tender care 
such little traits of one who '' with all the softness of temper that 
became a lady, had yet the personal courage of a hero," as that she 
" bought deaths as seldom as possible, and those as plain and cheap 
as consisted with the situation she was in, and wore no lace for many 



Swift's description of the condition of the people brings us on to 
about thirty years from the date of the suppression of the woollen trade. 
Another term of thirty years passes by, and it appears that tbings 
have not much improved in the interval. Primate Stone, in 1758» 
describes the people as not either regularly lodged, clothed, or fed, 
adding that, '* these things, which in England are called necessaries 
of life are to us only accidents, and we can, and in many places do, 
subsist without them." 

Again, proceeding down the stream of time some twenty years 
further, we come on Hely Hutchinson's declaration, that '' the present 
state of Ireland teems with every circumstance of national poverty ;'* 
and find the discouragement of the woollen manufactories by the 
English act of 1699, referred to as the principal cause of the distress 
and poverty of the land. " A country will sooner recover," says this 
writer, ''from the miseries and devastations occasioned by war, 
invasion, rebellion, and massacre, than from laws restraining the 
commerce, discouraging the manufactures, fettering the industry, and, 
above all, breaking the spirit of the people."t The situation is sum- 
marised by the author of a prize essay already quoted, who obserree 
that "the history of no fruitful country, enjoying peace, and not 
visited by pestilence and famine, during eighty years, can produce so 
many instuices of wretchedness as appear in Ireland during a period 
of that length, which succeeded the proscription of her woollen tnule.'* 

Meanwhile, it was not enough to inflict a fatal injury on a nation's 
industry, but the ill-used people must likewise be dcdfamed. With 

* life of Swift, in the edition of his works, published by Faulkner, 
t *< Tbe Commercial BestrainU of Ireland '* (1779). 

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Irish Wool and Woollens. 423 

TFiiten of a oertain class it became a habit to attack tbe IriBh tor being 
filothfa], lazy, idle, and indolent ; for their thievish, lying, slayish dis- 
position ; for their dirt, their disorder, and their mendicancy. The 
causes of their misfortunes were conveniently ignored, and poverty 
was attributed to them as a chosen and cherished vice. Other traducers, 
by a bold stroke, traced idleness, beggary, and the rest, to the religion 
of the bulk of the people. Lord Sheffield's rejoinder to the accusa- 
tion of idleness hits the mark in a few short words : " The Irish 
people are not naturally lazy; they are, on the contrary, of an active 
nature, capable of the greatest exertions, and of as good a disposition 
as any nation in the same state of improvement ; but " that men who 
have very little to do, should appear to do little, is not strange."* 
Bishop Berkeley seems to have been ignorant of the fundamental 
canae of the Irishman's sloth and backward condition. But he was 
too right-minded a man to be misled into supposing that the Oatholio 
religion was accountable for the evils complained of. " Many suspect 
yonr religion," says his lordship, addressing the Boman Catholic clergy 
of Ireland, '< to be the cause of that notorious idleness which prevails 
80 g^erally among the natives of this island, as if the Roman Oatholio 
faith was inconsistent with an honest diligence in a man's calling. 
But whoever considers the great spirit of industry that reigns in 
Flanders and France, and even beyond the Alps, must acknowledge 
this to be a groundless suspicion. In Piedmont and Genoa, in the 
Milanese and the Venetian State, and indeed throughout all Lombardy, 
how well is the soil cultivated, and what manufactures of silk, velvet, 
paper, and other commodities flourish ? The King of Sardinia will 
soffer no idle hands in his territories, no beggar to live by the sweat 
of another's brow; it has even been made penal at Turin to relieve a 
a strolling beggar. To which I might add, that the person whose 
authority will be of the greatest weight with you, even the Pope 
himself, is at this day endeavouring to put new life into the trade and 
manufactures of his country. Though 1 am in no secret of the Court 
of Borne, yet I will venture to affirm that neither Pope nor cardinals 
will be pleased to hear that those of their conununion are distinguished 
above all others by sloth, dirt, and beggary ; or be displeased at your 
endeavouring to rescue them from the reproach of such an infamous 
dLBtinction."f 

Betribution, in the meantime, was fast overtaking the traders who 
had been envious of their neighbour's good. They perceived, before 
long, that the result of their greed was to " starve a friend and glut 
a foe." Out of the ruins of the Irish trade rose, as already intimated, 
the great woollen manufactures of France, which, establishing a for- 

^ "ObterTationa on the Manufactures, Trade, and present state of Ireland'* 
(1785). 

t •• A Word to the Wise " (1762). 

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424 Irish Wool and Woollens. 

midable riyaliy with England's staple of oommerce soon beat the 
island factors out of the principal foreign markets^ ultimately oom- 
xnanded a sale even on British ground, and now are actuallj threaten- 
ing the very existence of the west of England trade in some of its 
important branches. The origin of the French woollen trade may be 
told in a few words. 

Colbert, Louis XIY.'s Minister of Finance, devoted very serious 
attention, from 1661 to 1683, to the task of developing the industrial 
activity of the French nation. In his youth he had served his appren- 
ticeship to a wooUen-draper, and the encouragement of cloth manufac- 
tures became a special pursuit when he found himself in a position to 
cany out his plans. The king aided his minister right royally, and, 
under the patronage of the State, the trade progressed. At this junc- 
ture Ireland, by increased wool production, was trying to make up the 
loss she had sustained through the stoppage of her cattie exports to 
England. Wool was wanted by France, and the Irish wool-growers, 
especially the Catholics, who Imew the Continent much better than 
fhey knew the neighbouring island, took advantage of the opening 
thus presented and landed their wool-packs in the French ports. 
Probably, however, the continental clothiers had but an imperfect 
appreciation of Ireland's resources in this particular until the soldiers 
of their nation coming over to fight for James II., in the revolutionary 
war, beheld the vast pastoral plains of the island, saw the peasantiy 
destroying the sheep that had usurped the place of the agriculturist 
on the soil, and learned how inexhaustible must be the wool supply of 
such a land. Wiser than their Irish allies, the French gathered up 
the fleeces of the slaughtered sheep, collected an immense quantity of 
woollen yam, and on their departure from Ireland carried off so much 
material as sufficed, in the parlance of that age, to put their manufac- 
turers upon a clothing trade for Turkey. Quickly on this followed 
the flight of the Irish weavers, and their settiement in the manufac- 
turing towns of northern France. About the same time, on the dis- 
banding of the army, after the conclusion of the treaty of Byswick, a 
number of soldiers, who had been originally weavers, returned to their 
trade. These men were instructed according to improved methods, 
and, together with the Irish contingent, notably increased the strength 
of the industrial forces. Irish wool now became an absolute necessity 
for the French manufactures, one pack of that staple being required 
to work up eveiy two packs of the material elsewhere procured. 
France was determined to obtain wool from Ireland, and Ireland was 
equally resolved that France should be supplied. Despite of armed 
cruisei-s, despite of revenue officers, in the teeth of penalties and pro- 
^hibitions, four-fifths of the Irish fleeces were carried annually to 
France. 

This clandestine export was effected in various ways, according to 

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Irish Wool and Woollens. 425 

flizoimistanoefl. During the first years a great quantity of raw wool 
was transported to the coasts of Glare and Galway, and shipped in the 
French yessels which came to take off the recruits for the Irish 
Brigades. It is said that this intimate association of '' Wild Geese" 
and wool had its origin in the fact that Captain Teigue M*Namara, a 
officer in the Irish Brigade, a native of Glare, and possessor of a large 
property in that county, took advantage of the opportunity he enjoyed 
as conductor of the recruiting expeditions to smuggle wool into the 
French ports, thus serving " the foes of Ireland's foe " in a two-fold 
way, and benefiting the home interests not a little.* Later on, the 
shores of Kerry and west Gork became the scene of wool smuggliii j:. 
conducted with the aid of privateers and fishing fleets. There wuie 
times when the smugglers' audacity knew no restraint, and the wool 
was carried openly to Gork city, and shipped in sight of the soldiers, 
who were sent to prevent the transaction.! Early, however, in the 
traffic a less clumsy method of transporting the material was devised 
and adapted in some of the principal ports. The wool was combed, 
screwed into butter firkins or beef barrels, covered with a layer of 
meat or grease, and, judiciously weighted with shot, passed through 
the custom-house as provisions. Quite early in the century merchants 
of Waterford, Wexford, and Youghal brought their ships into RocheUe, 
Nantes, St. Malo, and Bordeaux, and made their sales in the open 
market to the amazement of any English traders, travellers, or 
prisoners of war who might happen to be on the spot. So great was 
the demand for wool in France that, at certain times, the Irish mer- 
chants found it worth their while to take their cargo of raw wool into 
the English ports, and sell it there, notwithstanding the heavy dutiesi 
to factors who conveyed it to Kent and Sussex, whence the Owlers of 
those parts smuggled it, together with fine English wool, to the oppo- 
site shores.^ 

Thus, fed by English Owlers and Irish smugglers the French fac- 
tories worked at high pressure. Abbeville, Amiens, Beauvais, became 
centres of the doth trade, and Rouen gloried in possessing the first 
woollen manufactory in the world. In less than thirty years from the 
day when the Frendi soldiers carried home their load of Irish fleeces, 

^ See a paper bj the Very Ber. Dean Kennj, entitled *' History of Drunkennees in 
Irdaod," which appeared in the " UluBtrated Monitor," when that now eztinet 
pahlieation waa conducted by the late Father Robert Kelly, 8.J. 

t See '* Toar through Ireland of two Bngliah gentlemen " (1746). 

X In the appendix to Smilee' " Huguenote " there ia an interesting account of the 
Owlers of Bomnej Marsh, and of the waj in which the woolmen managed their busi- 
nesa. Dr. Johnson thinks that the word Owler, applied to one who carries out wool 
ilUdtlj, may perhaps come from the necessity of carrying on a clandestine trade by 
night ; but he rather belieres that it is a corruption of tooolUr, by a colloquial neglect 
of the tcr, such af is often obsenred in wonuM and other words. WooUer, oaUn, 
ewUrs. 



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426 Irish Wool and Woollens. 

and the rained weayers of the island sought refuge in the dominionB 
of Louis the Gh*eat, the woollen manufactures of France were brought 
to such perfection that the English clothiers could not discoyer aoy 
difference between the foreign fabrics and their own fine doths. The 
French had not only ceased to take English woollen goods, but had 
supplanted the once dominant traders in the most important foreign 
markets. They had engrossed the Turkey trade which England once 
enjoyed, and were supplying Italy, Spain, Portugal, and even Bar- 
bary with says, serges, druggets, and other stuffs, which formerly had 
been dassed as English.* 

It may not be improper to mention here that three important dis- 
coveries (but all, alas ! too late) were made in the course of the last 
century by English traders and politicians. 

First, it was discovered that a serious mistake had been made in 
interfering with the Irish cattle trade : '' Concerning these laws for 
prohibiting the importation of Irish cattle, many people think them 
in general to be hurtful ; and that it would be wiser to suffer the Irish 
to be employed in breeding and fattening their black cattle for us, 
than to turn their lands into sheep-walks as at present ; in consequence 
of which they are enabled, in spite of all our laws to the contrary, to 
supply foreign nations with their wools to our great detriment."t 

Secondly, it was discovered that it would have been better for the 
British Empire if the Irish had been allowed an open trade in their 
wool. "Experience has taught us," says a writer in the Daily Fast 
(1740), '' that the more the Irish are crampt in that article (the wool 
trade) the more it redounds to the advantage of the French, our most 
formidable and inveterate enemies. By the folly, not to say the in- 
justice of England, France has rivalled us these many years with a 
witness, in the Spanish, Portugal, Italian, and Levant trades, besides 
the great vent she finds for woollen goods in the Austrian Netherlands 
and some parts of Germany : this prodigious increase of trade has 
raised her to such a pitch of grandeur that she is become more terrible 
than ever to her neighbours." The same writer goes on to ask whe- 
ther it would not be more eligible " to let the Irish share with us in 
the woollen trade, nay, to throw even all our trade into their hands, 
than to raise up France upon the ruins of the whole British empire?" 

Thirdly, it was discovered, and in the British Parliament acknow- 
ledged, that truer statesmanship it would have been to leave all the 
" Papists ** in possession of their estates in Ireland than to force them 
by penal statutes to emigrate to America, where they or their sons 
were at that very time fighting with the desperation of injured men in 
the rebel ranks. 

* Prior: *< OtMerrationt on the Tnde^of IroUnd." Seoond Edition (1729). 
•* Memoini of Wool," toI. ii 

t " Annmli of Commerce " toL ii. 



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Irish Wool and Woollens. 427 

NatoraQj, a qnestion arises as to how it was that the strength of 
England was not adequately exerted in patting a stop to the trans- 
mission of the supplies from Ireland which kept the French factories 
working at a rate so injurious to rival establishments. The answer 
is that British strength was, indeed, put forth, but could effect little 
against a nation obstinately bent on resistance and erasion. A code of 
laws and a fleet of cruisers gained little in a contest with "a nation of 
smugglers/' ''When Ireland was restrained from exporting her 
woollen manufactures," writes Sir James Caldwell, " the exportation 
of raw wool became the business, not of the few, but of many : it was 
no man's interest merely as a native of Ireland to prevent it ; it was, 
therefore, not only connived at but encouraged ; and those who did 
not unlawfully export raw wool for a pecuniary advantage to them- 
selves, were well pleased to see it done by others, from a principle of 
resentment and indignation against those who had subjected them to, 
what they could not but consider as a cruel and oppressive law, which 
had not only impoverished many individuals whose wealth was a 
common benefit, but cut off bread from the mouths of innumerable 
industrious poor, and, consequently, produced national impotence and 
poverty." And, adds Sir James, it is both cruel and vain " to expect 
that the people of Ireland will not smuggle wool, because it is for- 
bidden by those, who have already forbidden them to eat."* 

Substantially similar is the view taken of the smuggling question 
by the author of '' The English in Ireland." As this lively writer 
brings the picturesque side of the situation into higher relief than does 
Sir James Caldwell, I take leave to brighten these pages by introduc- 
ing a sketch from the work just named. " The entire nation, high 
and low," says Mr. Froude, " was enlisted in an organised confede- 
racy against the law. Distinctions of creed were obliterated, and re- 
Bistanee to law became a bond of union between Catholic and Protes- 
tant — Irish Oelt and English colonist — from the great landlord whose 
aheep roamed in thousands over the Cork mountains to the guager who 
with conveniently blinded eyes, passed the wool-packs through the 
custom-house as butter-barrels; from the magistrate whose cellars 
were filled with claret on the return voyage of the smuggling craft, to 
the judge on the bench who dismissed as frivolous and vexatious the 
various cases which came before the court to be tried. All persons of 
all ranks in Ireland were principals or accomplices in a pursuit which 
made it a school of anarchy ; and good servants of the State, who 
believed that laws were niade to be obeyed, lay under the ban of 
opinion as public enemies. . . . Qovemment tried stricter methods, 
substituted English for Irish officers at the chief ports like Waterford 
and Cork, and stationed cruisers along the coast to seal the mouths of 

* *' An Biiquii7 concerning the BaftrietioDfUid on the Trade of Ireland" (1766). 

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428 Irish Wool and Woollens, 

the smaller harbours. But the trade only took refuge in bays and 
creeks where cruisers dared not run in. If encountered at sea, the 
oontrabrand vessels were sometimes armed so heavily that the Ooyem- 
znent cutters and schooners hesitated to meddle with them. If 
unarmed and overhauled, they were found apparently laden with some 
innocent cargo of salt provisions. ... Driven from Cork warehouses 
the packs were stored in caves about the islands, and cliffs, and crags, 
where small vessels took them off at leisurid ; or French traders, on 
signal from shore, sent in their boats for them. Ohests of bullion 
were kept by the merchants at Eochelle and Brest to pay for them as 
they were limded. When the French Government forbade the export 
of so much specie, claret, brandy, and silks were shipped for Ireland in 
exchange on board the vessels which had brought the wooL" 

For some of the above particulars Mr. Froude is indebted, as he 
acknowledges, to a manuscript preserved in Dublin Castle, bearing the 
date of 1 730. The price of fleece wool in Ireland at that time, according 
to the same document, was fivepence a pound ; of combed wool, one 
shilling. In France Irish fleece wool sold for two-and-sixpence a 
pound ; combed wool, from four and sixpence to six shillings. 

It is not eaqr to understand why the French, who were ready to 
give such a high price for Irish wool, did not turn their attention to the 
flocks of their own oountty. Arthur Yoimg described their sheep as 
wretchedly oared ; fed, or rather starved, on straw during the winter ; 
and lying on dunghills, so filthy was their stabling. The fleeces were 
poor, and of a bad quality, and three sheep were kept where there 
might have been a hundred. France spends, says this observant 
traveller, 27,000,000 livres a year on importing wool, every pound of 
which might be produced in the country. Of course it was all the 
betterfor poor Ireland that France was so negligent in this particular; 
for, says Swift, " Our beneficial trafiio of wool with France hath been 
our only support for several years past, furnishing us all the little 
money we have to pay our rents and go to market." 



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( 429 ) 



A THOUGHT FOE ASCENSION THUESDAT. 

BT WBSTOir SBAT. 

' III mj Bather's house there are manj mansions. I go to prepare a place for 
70u"(JoA»,xiT, 2.) 

OH ! shall I attain the bright maiision 
Mj Lord is preparing for me, 
The one spot in the house of the Father 
He has destined mine only to be P 

I reflect on the gifts and the graces 
Which through life o'er my sonl have been shed. 

And they seem like sad faces of lost ones 
Who reproachfully rise from the dead. 

I think of the bright early springtide. 
With its good seed, abundant and rare ; 

But where is the rich, golden harvest, 
That good seed was destined to bear ? 

I remember the griefs and the sorrows 

God has lovingly laid upon me, 
And I know that each one was a jewel 

For my mansion's adornment to be. 

But where was the meek resignation 

Which changes each woe into gold ? 
And where was the swift correspondence 

To graces in number untold ? 

For years it has seemed there are glimpses 

Fve lost of God's beautiful face ; 
And I fear lest this veil should foreshadow 

The loss of my once-destined place. 

I know there are other fair mansions 

In that beautiful kingdom on high, 
And I know for the lowest among them 

We well nnght a thousand times die. 

But still if I reach not the glory 

My Lord had for me set apart, 
"My failure has been disappointmeot 

To Jesus' adorable Heart. 



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430 The MonJis Prophecy* 

Less glory for Him and His Father, 

Less praise and less love would there be, 

If I fail in attaining the mansion 
Mj Lord is preparing for me. 

Ohy tell me, then, Jesus, oh, tell me 
The means of repairing the past, 

That BO, after all, I may enter 
Ky own special mansion at last. 

Oh ! welcome each grief and each sorrow. 
Oh ! welcome each firesh-ooming pain. 

Which, steeped in sweet tears of contrition. 
May help me that place to attain. 

And, oh ! when I'm tempted and weary, 
May life's brightest joy eyer be 

The thought and the hope of attaining 
The mansion preparing for me. 



THE MONK'S PEOPHEOY. 

A TALB. 
BY ATTIB o'bBIBN. 



CHAPTER XIL 

THB YAIiLEY OF THB SHADOW. 

Lf the morning Mrs. Barry returned to her business, and promised 
Sydney, who was becoming alarmed, to come again at night. Mrs. 
Onnsby wrote that day to Mrs. Wyndill, telling her of her great 
anxiety about the possibility of leaving Sydney unprotected, and her 
desire to go to her as soon as it could be managed. She lay back ex- 
hausted after writing the letter, and when Mrs. Barry arrired she found 
her rather worse than she had left her. 

''I wish you had someone that would help Miss Sydney," she 
said, " and cheer you up. This Nellie would be of great use to us, 
and would be like a bit of ould times to you, only for that cow." 

" Mother, should we ask Mrs. Hassett to come see you P' said 
Sydney. 

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The Monks Prophecy. 43 1 

''She wouldn't care to oome, dear. Came is more suited to the 
houise of rqoicing than of mourning." 

Mrs. Barry made no remark; but when she was going to the 
apothecary's, impelled by her increased uneasiness, she hurried on to 
Merrion-square, knocked at the door, and desired the servant to tell 
Mrs. Hassett a woman wanted her on particular business. She was 
tdd by Mrs. Hassett's orders to send up her message. She sent back 
the senrant again to say the message was about Mrs. Ormsby, and 
that she implored a few minutes' conversation. 

After considerable delay Mrs. Hassett appeared. " I understand 
you have some message from Mrs. Ormsby ?" she said. 

'< Not from her, ma'am ; I came of my own accord. She is veiy 
ilL" 

" Indeed ! I am yeiy sony. I have not seen her for some time." 

'' No one sees her," said Mrs. Barry, " and I think, ma'am, that's 
partof her sickness. She is pining away for the want of a friend's 
&oe." 

'' Oh, nonsense ; hasn't she her daughter ? She is not so weak- 
minded, I suppose. What's the matter with her P" 

''Worn-out, like, ma'am; and 'tis her child that's killing her, for 
fear she would have no one to look after her." 

" Oh, that's foolish. There are institutions for the education of 
officers' daughters, I believe ; she ought to get her into one of them." 

" I suppose the poor lady didn*t like to part with her, ma'am, and 
she her only comfort; but I thought if you came to see her that 
it would be cheer to her, and you may be able to make her mind ea^, 
in a way." 

" Yes, 111 call to see her, of course. Has she a doctor ? — is she 
oonfined to bed ? 

" She has a doctor, ma'am ; she gets up for some hours eveiy day." 

" And what does the doctor say ?" 

" He says she might get better if she cheered up, ma'am ; but she 
isn't cheering up a bit, only getting lower, I think." 

" Oh, I dare say you are alarming yourself needlessly ; probably 
she'll get all right. I sometimes feel very poorly myself, but I have 
no time for nursing my ailments. However, I'll call when I have 
time." 

"Make time for it, ma'am, for God's sake; for, doctor or no doctor, 
I think she is far gone. Maybe you could come to-morrow ?" 

" You are quite an alarmist," said Mrs. Hassett, tranquilly, — '• per- 
haps I may be able to call to-morrow ; — ^I shall if possible." 

Mrs. Barry returned to her patient thinking that though Mrs. 
Hassett did not seem a very kind-hearted visitor, a visit from her 
might be better than nothing. 

Next day Mrs. Ormsby was unmistakably worse. Mrs. Hassett 

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432 The Monks Prophecy. 

called. The seirant told her, in answer to her inquiries, that she ' 
yery ill ; so she sent up her card, said she would call again, and took 
her departure. 

The maid brought up the card. 

"Did she ask for Miss Sydney ?" asked Mrs. Ozxnsby, her face 
flushing. 

" No, ma'am, she only asked were you within, and when I said 
you were very ill, she gaye me the card, said she would call again, and 
went away with herself." 

The widow lay back with a weary sigh. " Teach me to ding to 
Thee, Lord," she murmured, " and not to creatures. My poor 
Sydney ! But you'll be happy, my lore. Ood will take care of Ms 
own. You'll go to Winnie ; — Winnie will be a second mother to my 
blossom." 

« •M'ft.THTnR^ you are frightening me," said the girl, kneeling beside 
her, and clasping her round the neck. " My darling mother, do you 
feel very ill?" 

" I don't know, my child. I haye a dull pain in my heart this 
long time. You fooUsh girl, don't cry. 'Tis only a heavy cold, and if 
it be God's will, I will be soon better. He may leave me yet awhile ; 
but his will be done ; his blessed will be done. He will take care of 
you ; He will give you safe to Winnie," she murmured, dreamily. 
'< He will cherish my lamb within his bosom, keeping her without 
stain." Her eyds dosed, and she lay back in a quiet deep. 

<< Oh, Mrs. Barry, I'm afraid she is very sick," said Sydney, when 
the laundress was coming up stairs that evening; "sometimes she 
does not know what she is saying. Oh ! what shall I do, Mrs. Barry, 
what shall I do ?" and she dung sobbing to her only friend. 

'< Don't let her see you cry, my poor lamb, it would break her 
heart. Put your trust in the Lord, dear heart, and He will do what is 
good for you." 

That day Mrs. Barry went for the priest, and he found his penitent 
in sore need of spiritual comfort. She dreaded death because of her 
child* Natural fears broke in upon the fulness of her faith, and filled 
her with unspeakable desolation. He spoke gently to her of the un- 
utterable love of Qod, and the strange foolishness of human creatures 
in supposing they are necessary for the care and protection of each 
other. It is God who cares and protects, He but makes men the dis- 
pensers of his gifts. If He remove one friend, He will raise up another, 
no one is forgotten, no one is neglected ; her child was as guarded and 
absorbed as much of his divine thought as if she were the only human 
being on the bosom of the broad earth ; she was in the arms of God ; 
she had only to cling to his breast. 

He administered the last sacraments, and that evening she rallied 
considerably, and spoke quite cheerfully of the futurer> "Thank 

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The MonKs Prophecy. 433 

Oody** she said, ^'I feel so mucli better; my dear Lord has 
strengthened me, sonl and body. How ungrateful I am eyer to mur- 
mur or fear. You must go to bed early, Sydney, darling, you are on 
your feet all day, as Mrs. Barry is staying with me. I'm afraid she 
will be greatly tired. What would we do without you though, Mrs. 
Bany ? But, perhaps, I will want no one to morrow night." 

Sydney went to bed, accordingto her mother's desire, and Mrs. Barry 
settled herself in the arm-chair. Silence gradually fell upon the house. 
Mrs. Cosgraye crept up softly and had a few words with Mrs. Barry, 
and crept away again ; Mr. Cosgraye let himself in with his latch-key, 
and stumbled muttering down stairs. The roll of cars and carriages 
lessened by degrees, till at last the great dty, as if worn out by the 
passionate action of the day, lay hushed and motionless. 

About three o^dock Mrs. Ormsby woke out of a troubled slumber, 
and opened her eyes wide. " I am called," she said ; '' he is waiting 
for me under the great palms ; — must I leaye his child P — Mrs. Bany, 
you won't forsake her till she goes to them. No, no, I cannot leaye 
my Sydney." 

Mrs. Barry soothed her, but she tossed restlessly about. 

*• My Lord," she murmured, " my wounded Lord, keep her dose 
to your heart ; — guard her innocence— my Sydney — ^my one comfort. 

Ood," she cried, mournfully, *' am I leaying her in the world alone 
—alone?" 

The girl sprang out of bed, and knelt sobbing by her mother's side. 

'' Not alone," said Mrs. Barry ; " the Lord will be always with 
her." 

"He will; — He is a God of loye;— my Sydney will neyer grieye 
Him. m watch,— rU watch,— if I be permitted.— My girl ! — oh, 'tis 
hard. — ^Tou will look after her, Mrs. Barry, till Winnie knows ;— you 
won't lose sight " 

" FU neyer lose sight of her till she is in safe keeping, so help me 
God," replied Mrs. Barry." 

** Thank Gk)d ; — you haye a girl in heayen ; — would that mine were 
there before me ; — I am leaying her behind on the cold deep sea ; — I 
am going — going " 

" O mother, mother, are you leaying me ?" and Sydney clasped her 
arms about her, " mother take me with you." 

" In good time, loye, in God's time ; — liye in his yineyard — work in 
it for Him — always for Him ; — I was yery tired, loye — I was a poor 
labourer. Herbert — I will tell him you are like him — my Herbert's 
girl." Her yoice grew lower, and she murmured fitfully : *• There is a 
flood in Poulanass to-night — I hear the music of the shining waters — 

1 am happy — happy but for her, my only one, my one ewe lamb— my 
only child. — Nellie, is baby asleep ? — Look at her eyes, Winnie, aren*t 
they as blue as heayen ? — Untroubled peace — what a beautif id^wordj^p 



434 '^^^ Monies Prophecy. 

untroubled peace. — Sweet Mother, pity a mother's heart. — Was there 
any sorrow like to thy sorrow? — Guard my treasure — ^keep her pure — 

for Him, the adorable One — the Man of sorrows^^f sorrows *' 

Her head fell back. " She is dead !*' shrieked the girl. « Mrs. 
Barry, Mrs. Barry, is she dead ?*' 

The dying woman started. '' Ko, no, my child — I cannot leave my 
child." She looked upwards with wild eyes ; in a moment a look <^ 
ineffable surprise and joy flitted over her face; again one of holy 
expectation, she lifted her arms: '* He comes," she whispered, ''the 
light is near^—He comes — his arms are about her — Jesus, Mary.** 
She laid her head on her daughter's shoulder ; another moment and 
creature and Creator were united. 

Mrs. Barry made all arrangements about the f uneraL She learned 
from the desolate orphan that they had no burial-place inTCasUeishen 
or LisdufP, and thought it would be unnecessary and unwise expense 
to take the body so far. " I have a grave in the old abbey of Moan," 
she said, '' and there are few of us now to All it ; — no one but me and 
Jim ; 'tis better to bury the dear lady there than to be buying a new 
grave. The Barrys were a decent stock, once in their time ; and sure, 
anyway, 'tis all equal in the grave." 

The orphan kissed her, and told her to do what was best. On a 
cold February morning a poor funeral left the city for the churchyard 
by the sea ; Sydney and Mrs. Barry followed the hearse, in a mourning- 
coach, and dumb with grief, and blind with weeping, when all was 
over, the girl returned to her lodgings. The laundress made her 
eat and drink. *' Trust in the Lord, my poor child," she said, '' and 
act as if you thought He and your dear mother were watching you,— 
and sure so they are. I'll come in to-night and stop with you, dear 
heart. I wouldn*t go now if I could help it." 

Mrs. Barry hurried away, thinking she should work hard to make 
up for the loss of the past hours. " But Jim wiU have the water and 
ever3rthing ready," she said, " 'twas Ood sent him home to me after 
all, mv poor boy." 

; she returned to her charge. She f oxmd her asleep 
bright hair tumbled about the pillows, the round 
I crimson lips parted with heavy sighs that shook the 
ing so fair and soft and innocent that the faithful 
3r spirit in prayer, beseeching Gk>d to send her proper 
bection. 

Dments she awoke to a fresh consciousness of her 
ling to her humble friend in an agony of grief. She 
»t she could, with tender words and prayers, rocking 
»m. When the paroxysm of emotion had exhausted 
smoothed the girl's hair with gentle touches, and 
me now, dear love, and let us talk of what is best to 

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Tie Monk's Prophecy. 435 

be done. Your Tnamma gaye me a charge over you, like, and Fll see 
to it, please God. Wliat I want to settle, is the way you'll manage 
till you hear from your friends. How long will it be till you get a 
letter, dear r 

'' Mamma's letter was neyer posted," sud the girl, sitting up ; 
" her last letter," and again the tears rolled down her face. 

" Well, we'll post it to-morrow, dear ; but I was thinking if you 
could stay altogether at the school^ till you were sent for. Wouldn't 
it be a good thing P" 

" I think I couldn't, Mrs. Barry," and Sjr^ey wiped her eyes, and 
tried to collect her thoughts. " We hadn't much money. Just before 
mamma got sick she paid Mrs. Oosgraye for three months, she used 
to pay in advance ; and she got in a supply of things. What am I to 
do? Shealsopaidformy next quarter at school; so I think we can't 
haye a great deal. TU get her desk, Mrs. Barry, and we'll see." 

After a good deal of consideration, Mrs. Barry said: ''Well, Miss 
Sydney, dear, maybe 'tis the best plan for you to go on as you are, till 
we look about us. It would be so much lost if you went out of this, 
and the lodging-money paid ; and you haye as much in the house as 
will go far in supporthig you for the next six weeks. Sure, if you 
went down the country to your own place you'd lose the schooling, and 
your mamma, the Lord be with her, wouldn't rest easy in her graye. 
She was all for the [schooling, though, sure, dear knows, I think you 
know as much as would do a dozen." 

Sydney smiled faintly. " I don't know much, Mrs. Barry," she 
said; 'Td like to go on with my studies; Tm sure 'tis what mftmniii 
would wish." 

'^ Yes, I'm sure it is, dear, and 'tis just the most saying way to stop 
here till your time is up. The Lord knows what would happen before 
then ; or who He would rise up to befriend you. You'll want to get 
a bit of mourning, dear ; lucky enough 'tis mostly black things you 
haye already. And 'tis better for you to go to the school in a couple 
of days' time : I'll go with you myself, and tell the nuns all about you. 
You'll do weU, my lamb, with the help of the good God. This is a 
quiet place; Mrs. Oosgraye is a decent poor fool of a woman, and 
that's what I won't say of more of them, but you'll have nothing to 
say to them or anyone else ; a young lady, like you, must keep to 
herself like, and pass no freedom with anyone." 

And so were the present details of Sydney's life arranged. Mrs, 
Barry went with her to the conyent, and told her sad story to the 
nuns,who listened with deep sympathy ; but friendless orphans are no 
unoonmion experience in conyentual establishments, and they approved 
of Mrs. Barry's management. ''I wish I could take the poor child," 
said the Beyerend Mother, with a sigh, " but there are many, many 
worse off, and I am helpless to relieve theoL It goes to my heart to 



Vol. X. No. 108. oigiti 



iz^y Google 



436 Th€ MmKs Prophecy. 

be obliged to withstand the appeals made in tiMr behalf. But FIl 
see that she has eyery advantage that we can giyeher, and ' sufiBdea 
for the day is the evil thereof.' " 

Sxmctays were the lonely girrs worst days. She spent the gveatet 
part of them in the chnrohes, and contriyed to have a book for the 
evenings, for she was afraid to go out alone to Benediction. 

So she lived <m from day to day with a certain ohild-likefaithy that 
her present iscdation was only temporary and that by the time her 
education was finished Winnie would take her away. She lived in 
the presenti studied, attended to all her litde duties, and gave no deep 
thought to mmm unhappy possibilities, falling adeep at night, poor 
diildy with wet lashee» and the namd of Sod and her mother on her 
lip4. 

One day Mrs. Bany said to her abrupt c ''The Sundays are the 
lonesomest for you, dear, and, do you kliow, I was thinking if you 
came with myself next Sunday I'd bring you to see a nice place you 
Were never in ; you won't be too proiuLto walk along with me P I am 
very decent in my best suit, and the people would take me to be your 
nurse. 'Tift the sweetest spot you could soe ;«— flowers and ^everything 
would rise your heart like f " 

" Oh, it would be lovely, Mrs. Barry. Fd like it ever so nnioli. 
Where is itr 

« 'Tis liie Bivers' almshouse," she replied, wiili a little hesitation, 
but there's no one in it but ladies; — and real ladies some of them artt, 
surely. I washes for them. And there's one young lady in it as 
handsome as a picture, with a pair of eyes like two stars, and as good 
as she's handsome. Maybe we would see her." 

" And woilkl they let us walk about there^ and look at every* 
thing?" 

'' 'Deed then they would, I think. They are very Mendly with 
mysdi^ iand as for my Jim, nothing is done right but what he doea; 
the ladies are as fond of him as you can't think — ^but everyone takes 
to him, my poor boy. He jobs about for tiiem, and Mks White 
teachee him a power with his one hand." 

"Who is Miss White? Is she one of die ladies ?" 

''She is, and a real lady; betther than her isn't walking the wotUL 
If Ae doesn't go straight to heaven, I don't know who wilL A Utfc 
angel she is ; she's advanced in yean now, but die's as lights — and 
only for being a bit delicate — she'd be as smart as yourself, t t^m 
make very bold on her> and bring you to see her ; and maybe weM 
find her withjn. I wouldn't take you there, dear^oidy I knew they're 
such as your ntother would like you to keep company witii, though 
th^ are a bit down in the world, from what th^y ought to be." 

Mrs. Barry departed in a glow ef sattsfteiion at l^fdney's end«^ 
pleasure im the proposed disposal of some of her Sunday hours. They 

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GConnell. 432 

were to liear Haas at wliat waa called the Alms-houBe Qhxiroh. It 
was built so near the ahns-house that a little passage was oonstmoted 
for the ecmyenienoe of the old ladies whioh led through a side*door 
directly into the pew appointed for their eq>eoial use. 

{To U ovtUinuei.) 



O'OONNELI,: 

HIS BIABT nUNIC I792 TO l802, JLRD LBTIXB8 
VOW lOB TEB WOUn TDU PVBLUBID. 

Fast II. 

Thb most agreeable book that has crossed our path for many a day i» 
** The Mendelssohn Family/' tracing the quiet fortunes of the great 
Oerman composer's kindred through many generations. Would that 
materials existed for a similar record of ** The O'OonneU Family." It 
would contain many portraits worth presendng, besides the grand 
central figure. 

We introduced the original documents, of which this is the second 
instalment, with some remarks on the position held by the O'OonneDs 
in Kerry, long before Daniel O'ConneU made the name famous oyer 
All the world and through all coming time. If we had not limited our 
proofs to xmpublished documents, we might haye gone back to the days 
of the Kundo Biuuccini ; the first bishop he met in Ireland was Bickard 
O'Oonnell, Bishop of Ardf ert and Kerry.* But we ought at least to 
haye giyen in this context the following letter &om the Sjiight of 
Kerry, who was then a member of the Irish goyemment: the answer 
aent by O'Oonnell's unde was printed in our last Number : — 

•* I am exoaediofly obliged to yon for your kind intontioni^ and for the pains 
jon took for me. I haro now, thank God, weathered the itonD ; and, unltm I meet 
BOBUb unforeeeen miafortune, I nerer ihaU encounter luch diatreea again. 

*' I ha?e no doubt you will exert yonraelf, and preTail on your frienda to do ao, in 
faToor of the plan for remoTing the abominable griefanoe at DrunghilL I luppoie 
^ermyn haa before now made a good progreia in tracing the proper line and fonnlng 
mm. eatimate. I think the iroark ahould be done in a tt^le of aolidity and dnractfoo* 
well guarded by arches, and a stout lintem, from the mountain waters, and so exeented 
S0 to make it an ererlMting wiork for the purpose. We must not hesitate aft some 

* A gsapUo aeeomt of thsb interriew in Maeroom Oastle, will be found ai page 
we of the Ser. 0. P. Meehan's *« Iririi Hiemrehy in the Btrenteenth Oentuiy.'' 

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438 (yCannelL 

eztnordmary expenae, and I think we shall by the subBcription make the burthen easy 
to the baronj. 

*' I hare been thinking of a seheme for eaving the baronj of Iveragh from being 
the asjlam of the outlaws and Tagabonds of the other parts of the oountrj. The 
Aasociations of Volunteers hare done wonders, orer 'the kingdom, in ciTilising the 
oountrj and quelling lawless proceedings. Whj should not a corps be raised in that 
baronj, westward of the BiTer Begh ? The gentlemen of propert j, of jour religion, 
in that countrj, uniting with the Protestants, might soon raise a bodj of men, I should 
imagine, that might be relied on for executing the abore purposes. If a spirit of that 
sort should be raised and carried into execution, the men disciplined and well-olBcered, 
I will furnish them with firelocks. In such an undertaking care must be taken to 
aroid entering into feuds and factions, and to hare no object in Tiew but the peace 
and good of the public. 

*' I am, dear sir, 

'* Your most obedient and most faithful serrant, 
*< Robert FinGsaALD. 

« Merfum-SqwiTet FAfwry Isf, 1780." 

The original of a mnch older letter lies here before us, written at 
Bamnane, on the 23rd of April, 1748, by John 0'Ck)nnell, the great- 
grandfather of the Liberator. The style and matter prove the writer 
to hare been an educated gentleman — ^which is more than could be aaid 
at that time of many holding high positions. 

But we shall not go further back than the death of O'Gonnell's 
grandfather. We have not ascertained the year when that event 
occurred — ^the following letter is dated October 3rd, from Killameyy of 
which the writer was parish priest : — 

*^ The death of Daniel O'Oonnell has been so much and so sinoerelj lamented 
bj all the good, to whom he was known either bj fame or personallj, that it would be 
an idle and unmeaning sort of consoling to saj to his widow and children — donU 
grieve. I do not saj it to jou, for mj own grief, though not so immediatelj connected 
with that worthj man, was such that I can't suppose thej could be without those feel- 
ings which good nature suggests and christianitj permits upon such occasions. 7etit 
is to me, and should be to them, a matter of comfort that his life and conrersation 
have been no verj imperfect sketch of the glorious picture which Holj Writ exhibits 
to us of a true serrant, in the Book of Bcclesiasticus — where after encouraging us to 
bestow praises upon the meritorious kindred that went before us, *' Laudemus viroe 
gloriosos, etc.," the description goes on to this purpose : *' Hen great in virtue and 
endowed with innate prudence . . . men rich in virtue studjing the beau^ of onier 
and rectitude, and producing peacefulness in their own houses, and thus giving glorj 
among their neighbourhood, men aboundiug in pietj and mercj, affording to the 
people proofs of their wisdom and to the Church matter for their praise." From all 
whidi the holj penman infers that there are grounds to hope that good things shall 
dwell with their children as with holj inheritors, who bj imitating their Tirtoes aoquire 
a right to be in Qod's powerful keeping. 

"The above, if well attended to, will, I think, contribute to calm the afflicted 
gentlewoman at DarriAane, and her children, and will also afford joj to his posteritj, 
if with an eje of faith thej look up to the ' good things' fto., mentioned above, which 
I most sinoerelj wish thej maj. And now, cousin Maurice, to joa i^ parttcniar, I 

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CConnelL 439 

•aj would be no wonder if I had got proper notice of your father's approaching death, 
and a friendlj call to mingle my tears with those of the family, then, or, at least, 
at the end of the month after it — but probably it is my own fault that so few oare for 
me. 

" I am, indeed, with tender affection to you all, 

" MORGAX O'CyOnnELL." 

The pages we haye giyen from O'CozmeU's iinpubliahed diary were 
written in his twentieth year, while he was a law-student in London, 
lodging at a Mrs. Bigby's in Chiswick. We shall not print the aoooont 
which the smart, cynical young lawyer furnishes of the character and 
appearance of his landlady; but here is his description of her house : — 
" A sketch of the characters of my f ellow-lodgers and some of my ac- 
quaintances may, perhaps, at a future periodi be amusing; the drawing 
or ^attempt at drawing must be of present utility; these arguments 
justify ia my mind the enterprise. I shall preface Uie characters with 
a description of the situation and of the house. This house fronts the 
Thames and commands a view of Barnes at the one side, and of the 
Margraye of Ansbach's house on the other. An island coyered with 
reeds and osiers, lies opposite the door, and extends some length both 
ways. Nothing can be better calculated for a lodging-house than this 
is. The apartments are extensiye and unconnected; each inmate is as 
much alone as if in a separate house.'' 

Before transcribing the next entry in the diary, we may giye the 
concluding words of the one preceding it : '' Mrs. Hunter desired me 
to insert in my journal an obseryation of her daughter's. It is that in 
£fty years I would doubt whether I was a man or a cabbage-stump, so 
much was I inclined to suspicion." Miss Hunter and O'Oonnell him- 
self had little notion of what he was to be infifty years. That term of 
years brought him down to 1 845. One would be curious to know how 
far Us Ghiswick fellow-lodgers followed the young Kerryman's career. 
'' Thuriiay, December Slet, 1795 :— With this day the year closes. 
How fleet has it been in its progress, how rapid in its course ! It 
seemed to commence but yesterday, and behold it already is no more. 
A few more such years, and the scene wiU dose upon me. I who now 
write, who now think, who now moye with strength and yelodty will 
be stretched, pale, motionless, inanimate — ^my mind now can grasp in 
its comprehension millions of 

" Adamantine spheree 
Boiling unshaken through the Toid immenee.'** 

It can descend from this eleyation, either gradually or with one bold 
stride to the minute insect that escapes the eye of the microscope. What 
is to become of this comprehensiye mind ? The body, placed in a solitary 
comer, a prey to worms and yermin, soon will restore to the elements 

* Akenaide't " Pleaanrea of Imagination." 

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44P CyCmnelL 

the porfdoDB of oaoh vUdh it has absorbed, or I should rather say of 
which it is composed. But the mind — ^the mind ! " Through what 
raiiety of untried being" is that to roam ? 

He ends his airy speculations with this practical bit of business : 
"I read this day 12 pages of E. N. P., about 40 pages of Gk)dwin, and 
as many of Gibbon, and 5 pages of " Para's Physique Exp6rimentale." 
for some days I have not inserted what I read. It was not because I 
W«8 idle these days." 

'< Sa^iay, Jmumry % 1796.— I this day receiyed a letter from 
Maurice, dated Garhen, on the 21st ultimo. He is extremely 
izntated against the general. It would be extremely improper 
in ma to inf oxm the latter of the opinions of his oonduct which 
this letter contains. Howerer, I will behave with prudence and 
firmness on the occasion. I will not deny having the letter, 
nor will I show it. It would be happy for me if I could follow the 
•tme method of conducting myself at all times; and why should I 
not ? It is only neceesaiy for this puxpose to weigh well eadi action 
before I oommence it. I am not now m^ train for deep speculation, 
neither am I fit for gaiety or vivacity : what I write must be dull and 
vapid, void of reason as of wit. 

''I this day read the usual quantity of E. N. P., sixteen pages of 
Ctodwin, ninety pages of Gibbon, and eighty of Hooter's Historical 
aoeount of a suit at law. This book wiU in future be mentioned under 
the title of H. 8. L. I read likewise some passages of the Manual of 
Liberty (to be contracted in future numbers to M. L., and a hundred* 
aad-tweive pages of ** Hugh Trevor" to Miss Hunter. The Manual 
ef Liberty is composed of quotations from different authors, which 
quotations contain arguments to demonstrate the folly or ridicule to 
diow the absurdity of existing Political Institutions. The confused 
false or exaggerated representations which crafty tyranny invents in 
support of these institutions, and which blind prejudice receives are 
dangerous to the liberty, that is to the happiness of m a nkin d. The 
book in question supplies arguments to combat and convince even 
prejudice ; and must, therefore, be useful in propagating the cause of 
truth. 

'' Sundaif, January 3rd, 1796 :— I read to-day 90 pages of Oibboa, 
and 63 of the ' Eights of Women,' written by Mary Wolston- 
craft. This work may, if perused with attention, be veiy useful. It 
is calculated to open the road to truth by clearing away prejudice. 
That the present state of female education is miserably erroneous, tiiat 
mind has no sex, and that women are unjustiy enslaved, are opinions 
t have long entertained. Whart portion of power in ihe governing 
world ought to be entrusted to the female sex is a question which I 
cannot decide. However, Godwin has in some measure made up my 
mind on the subject, by proving that Government to be b€«t ^irfjich 



OCanmll. 441 

liad fewest restraints upon priyate judgment. Sorely the judgment of 
the one sex ought to be as unshackled as that of the other. 

^' TumAo^^ Jtmmry 5ih, 1796 :— I was in town yesterday and I did 
not return until late in the evening. The Qeneral did not ask for 
Maurice's letter. I went to bed last night at one o'clock and got np 
this morning at eight. My watch was at the maker's these some days 
past, and this is the reason of my omitting the insertion of the hours 
of going to bed and rising. 

*' I will no longer insert the number of pages which I read each 
day. I shall content myself with setting down the day I begin and 
the day I end each book. From this rule I will except my law study. 
I hare already resolyed to read twelye pages a day of E.N.P. ShoiUd 
I fail in this I will remark it, in order that the insertion of one fault 
nu^ serve to admonish me and prevent a repetition. 

'' 1 last night began the " life of Dr. Johnson/' by Arthur Murpihy. 
Hiis is reckoned the best life of him extant; it neither fatigues by^the 
redtai of trifles into whidi Boswelland Mrs. Fioszi descend, and still it 
IB so managed as not to disgust by a mere list of dates. Mr. Murphy is 
now sitting at tea witih Mrs. Hunter in the room beneath this in which 
I write. He is a very lively agreeable old man, and looks extremely 
wett although at the age of 75. He was attentive to me when 
I was here last year. He once attempted to argue me out of my dezao- 
cratic opinions, but he handled the subject ill, and indeed gave me 
several arguments against the propositions which he endeavoured to 
establirii. However, I was not permitted to make use of any argument ; 
he kept the debate entirely to himself, and of course had it all his own 
way. 

** Wkln&tday, Janumy 1^, 1796 : — A week has elapsed since the 
last was written — a soreness in my eyes, a trifling one indeed, and 
negligence, were the causes of the interruption. I now reassume my 
poi, having formed a resolution to write something everyday; the time 
of sitting down to begin the number for the day, shall not, I intend, 
be latw than half -past three. In mentioning the studies of the day, 
a practice I mean to reassume, the term '* day," must be understood to 
mean the time that elapsed since a similar entry was made on tiie pr^ 
ceding day. 

" I went to bed last night at half-past twelve and got up this 
morning at ten. Since I commenced this journal at Chiswick, I have 
felt many salutary effects from thus taking a retrospective view of my 
conduct. I study much more than I did before. Indeed, while at 
home, I read or write almost continually. But in the article of sleep 
I am as culpable as ever; instead of going to bed early and getting up 
early, I do the reverse. Many resolutions I have formed on this head 
— no beneficial effect has ensued. The resolution of the present 
mommit may be as futile as its predecessors. Were this journal to falL 

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442 (yConnelL 

into the hands of any of my acquaintances, how ridiculoas would it 
appear, but it would be the deuce itself if it was by any accident met 
with by one of those whose characters I hare endearoured tofaketdL 

'' Bennett set off for Liverpool on Monday evening tojbe called to 
the Bar. He was not married a month at the time of his d^arture. 
How happy or how miserable would his condition make me ! — I mean, 
not his absence from his wife, but his connection with her ; but I will 
not now speculate on this subject. 

<< Thurtdaffy January, lith, 1796.— I went to bed last night at about 
one, and got up this morning at nine. I read 15 pages of E. N. P., 
and 80 of '' Godwin." I have likewise read two volumes and a half of a 
Kovel called ''The Ring," the most stupid, insipid work I have met 
with; yet I mean to finish it before I go to bed. I heard from Owney 
this morning ; he mentions the conduct of Maurice while at home, 
which I will treat of in a future number. 

" Monday, January \%th, 1796.— I went to town on Friday, and did 
not return imtil Saturday evening. On Friday I attended at the Old 
Bailey ; two highway men were tried and found guiliy. Kow, if these 
imfortunate men are hanged, will one more virtue be infused into the 
bosom of anycme P will one crime lees be committed than had they 
escaped P Oertauily not ; the experience of ages shows the inefiELdencj 
of punishment. The reasoning of the speculatist shows its immorality. 
Yet men continue to inflict it on their fellow beings. Driven to de- 
spair by the wants of nature and the contempt of his acquaintance, the 
man whose strenuous efforts are insufBlcient to procure him subsistence, 
takes the road and forcibly deprives the luxurious or the unfeeling of 
a portion of their superfluities. The sacred rights of property thus 
violated, devote the head of the imwilling spoliator to destruction. 
And this is what we are taught to call justice. Justice, what hor- 
rors are committed in thy name ! I read this day 58 pages of Paia» 
60 of Godwin, and 103 pages of an Essay on the '' Life and Genius 
of Johnson," by Arthur Murphy. I believe I have already remarked 
that Mr. Murphy's style is easy, dear, and not inelegant; but he is 
nothing less than a philosopher. He seems to defend not truth but 
Johnson ; he runs out in many unnecessary declamations on modern 
reformers, and metaphysical theorists. 

" I wrote and despatched a letter to-day to my undo Maurice for 
money. The style of this letter satisfied me more than that of many 
others of mine has done. 

*^ January 19M, 1796.— I read this day 110 pages of Gibbon, 23 
of Gbdwin, and 33 of Para. I read l^ewise part of the treatise 
on aerology, in Hall's EncydopsBdia. I read but 5 pages of E. N. P 
The artifidal unnatural distinctions of the law disgust me, while the 
iniquity of punishing ignorance shocks. To understand the second 
branch of the foregoing sentence it is necessary toreooUeqtthat innew 

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New Books. 443 

I the probability is that the losing party was prompted by the doubt- 
ful terms of these Acts of Parliament to undertake or defend the suit. 
Ignorance is punished in another manner in the English courts of 
Justioe. Men unayoidably lose not unfrequently considerable inter- 
ests through the ignorance of the special pleader. The omission of a 
word in a dedaration is sufGLcient to set aside the best founded judg- 
ment ; and this case is peculiarly cruel, as the individual who suffers 
is innocent of the mistake or neglect which proved fatal to his 
interests. 



NEW BOOKS. 



Li order to gain some more space for the subject to which the concluding 
pages of our present issue will be devoted — ^the Denis Florence 
McCarthy Memorial — ^we shall condense still further our usually veiy 
brief notices of books. Many of the works that we mention in this 
cart fashion will require us to return to them next month. 

We must reserve for a separate article the wonderful series of 
volumes^ forming a library in themselves — Bihliotheca Neo-Aurelianmm 
—which we owe to the religious zeal and literaiy industiy and skill of 
Mother Austin Carroll, of ti^e Convent of Mercy, New Orleans. 

Such, also, must be, for the present, the fate of two volumes of 
verse, very different in their aim and character, published by an Irish 
parish priest and an English oratorian. From the press of Messrs. 
James Du% & Sons we have '* Verses on Doctrinal and Devotional 
Subjects," by the Bev. James Casey, P.P., who uses with great zeal 
and skill this novel instrument for the religions instruction of our 
simple people ; while the poems of the Eev. H. I. D. Byder, of the Bir- 
mingham Oratory, which our own publishers, Messrs. M. H. Gill & Son, 
have just issued in an attractive little volume, will be^foimd to consti- 
tute a remarkable addition to English literature, full of original 
thought, expressed with consummate grace and refinement. Of course 
our readers shall hear more on this subject. 

Messrs. Bums & Oates have taken up their abode at Granville Man- 
sions, Orchard-street, Portman-square, London, W. Their new address 
is not more conveniently written : may it have compensating advantages 
and form a ** new departure " in a long career of literary enterprise. We 
can only mention among their new publications a very clear and brief 
*' Catechism of the Vows of the Religious State,'' by Father Cotel, 8. J., 
andthe third of the Granville Hi8toryBeader8,inwhichMr. T. J.Livesey 

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444 ^^ Books. 

tellB, very aiinply and pleasantly, the atory of England from the Waw 
of the Eoses to the present time. Those who have anything to do with 
our Catholic soldiers, many of whom are so wonderfully good, ought to 
provide themselves with " The Soldier's Companion." It begins with 
brief addresses from two priests and two officers. We prefer the 
laymen. The same publishers give us, in a small volume, skeidieB, by 
the Rev. William Lloyd, of the four recently canonised saints-'Caare 
of Montef alco, Laurence of Brindisi, Benedict Joseph Labre, and John 
Baptist de Rossi. 

For June the Granville Mansions Press supplies also a new issue 
of that most solid spiritual work, Father Arnold's " Imitation of the 
Sacred Heart of Jesus," with an introduction which, for the first time, 
gives an accoimt of the author, a Belgian- American Jesmt. 

Ve lately called attention to a Child's Prayerbook which can only be 
had on application to the Sisters of Mercy, Limerick.* We ought in 
that context to have given many words of praise to the Child's Picture 
PJpayerbook, published by Mr. Washboume, of Paternoster-row. But 
we refer to the Limerick publication at present for the purpose of 
complaining that another LimerickReligioushouse has adopted the same 
policy as regards the circulation of a little book which deserves the 
widest drculation—we mean "A Retreat for Men," by the Rev. T. R 
Bridgett, C.8S.R.— vigorous and original sermons in preparation 
for the renewal of baptismal vows. Their merits are of that sterling 
kindwhichwill beexpected by all who have eitherreador heard Father 
Bridgett. The title-page contains a curious statement, or rather two 
of them—" To be obtained only from the Redemptorist Fathers, price 
sixpence." This last circumstance explains the first : the book is given 
on such ruinous terms that poor terrestrial booksellers, who must 
look to something else beside the good of souls, cannot afford to have 
anything to say to it. If our unauthorised announcement draws down 
upon the good Fathers of Mount Alphonsus, Limerick, an avalanche of 
sixpences (with three half -pence added for postage), we tender to them 
beforehand the most ample apology. ^ 

We announced last month the publication of "A Collection of 
Chants and Melodies for the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary, by 
Joseph Jenks" (Bums & Gates). We did not express any opinion (for 
we had none) as to the merit of the collection. Our musical critic Km 
an opinion. " The publication of the above, the production eridently 
of an inexperienced writer, is to be regretted, as the work cannot in 
any way be commended. The melodies are weak and secular in cha- 
racter, and in all many of the harmonic progressions are faul^ and 
most unsatisfactory. There is no want for good Litany chants how- 
ever, as they are to be found in the numerous collections of hjmns and 
chants published by the German and American Cecilian Societies, and 
• Since our remarks were printed— po»< hoe, ergo propter hoe f " My LitUe Pmyer- 
boek " is pubUrfied by M. H. Gill & Son. ^g.^.^^, .^ GoOglc 



De9$is Florence Mac Carthy. 445 

49 be had, we believe, of Meflsis. Bums A Oatee of Londoni and 
oiher Caiholio bookselleis.'' 

finally, as it has oome so far and as it is spedall j appiropriaie to 
iftuB month olJnne, we offer our prelinunaiy weloometo ''Hymns of the 
Sacred Heart, by Eleanor Donnelly, adapted to original and selected 
melodies '' (Philadelphia, 534 Pine-street). We have heard that Hiss 
Donnelly is a singer in two senses of the word ; and we trust that our 
eritio wiU find the music as sweet and true as the verse whioh it trans- 
lates into another language. 

For a convent-prize or gift-book there is nothing fresher or better 
than "A Saint Among Saints — Sketch of the Life of St. Emmelia^ 
Hoiher of St. Basil the Qreat" (Dublin: M. H. Gill and Son)— of 
whiah Biore anon. 



DENIS ELOEENOE MAO CAETHT. 

n. 

It was less than a fortnight before Mr. MacCarthy's death that the 
wiiter of these simple memorial notes, after congratulating him on the 
i m p rovement in his health, went on to take blame to himself for having 
wo long ddayed a projected eauserie about his poetiy, such as had been 
already devoted to the poetry of his friend Aubrey de Yere, Ooventiy 
Pbtmore, Dalton Williams, Adelaide Procter, and many others less 
deserving of this hom^;e from the Ibish Moittbdlt. He ventured also 
to ask the poet what were his own favourites among his poems — ^what 
samples he would prefer to see set before our readers. But now it 
matters less what flowers are culled from the poet's garden ; for our 
garland is to be laid on a grave. Well, let us do all we can for one 
ano t h e r while we are in this mortal state, which enables us to give 
and to take such services. In grown-up hearts there are chords similar 
to that whioh Mrs. Hemans touches lightly in a childish heart: 

"Ah! when my l>rother with me played. 
Would I had loved him more.'* 

Xhe chief tribute paid in these pages to our poef s memory shaU, this 
liwnt h i consist of the list of names found on one of the few leava^ 
vhoflh now remain to be filled. If any of our readers are unacquainted 
vi&DeniB FLorenoe MacCarthy'swor^ as a man and apoet, they may 
leam it from the array of contributors, many of them distinguished 
men and representatives of many classes, who have already come for* 
ward to do honour to his name. /-^ 1 

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446 Denis Florence MacCarthy. 

The sanction of Oardinal Newman's name is more predomi even 
than his too munificent subscription. The deceased poet yielded to 
none in the affectionate rererence which he felt for the illustrious 
Oratorian Oardinal. His last gift to a dear relatiye was a oopj of the 
famous Ouless portrait of his Eminence. 

Our new Irish Cardinal wrote, on the 5th of May, from Bome : — 

•* I am glad to tee that the friends of Denii Florence MacOarthy are eaartins 
themeelTes to erect a Monument to his memory. I trust that the result of thmr 
labours will be worthy of the man. To his high literary character he added the itill 
higher title of Christian gentleman. I beliere I am quite safe in saying, that during 
his chequered career, no word escaped his pen that could wound the most sensntiTe 
modesty. No act of his public or domestic life weakened his hold on the affectionate 
esteem of those who knew him from earliest manhood. The memory of saeh a man 
Should be cherished. To help this good work, I send you a cheque for £6^ with ny 
most sincere wish for its succen." 

We may be allowed to mention here that Oardinal Mao Oabe and our 
deceased poet were fellow-students, and that the friendship of youth 
was maintained to the end. 

One of the most refined and thoughtful Tolumes of verse that hare 
oyer issued from the press has just been dedicated by its author- 
Father Byder of the Birmingham Oratory—" to Aubrey de Vera as a 
slight expression of reyerence for one whose life has been a happy 
blending of fidelities to his church, his country, and his muse, in an age 
which presents but few examples of any such conjunction." Denis 
Florence Mac Oarthy was another example. That these kindred spirits 
were linked together by a high mutual appreciation and regard is 
known to those who hare had ^e honour of their acquaintance, and is 
testified by the survivor in a letter from which we take a few ex- 
tracts: — 

<* I need hardly say that I shall be but too glad that my name should be added to 
those connected with the D. F. MacCarthy Memorial Fund. It is indeed wsU 
that Ireland should do honour to one who has done honour to her, not only by hii 
genius, but also bj the fact that l^e always employed that genius in the intereits of 
Tirtue and religion as well as of Ireland- Whererer his poetry is read— whefchsr Ui 
original poetry, so much of which relates to Ireland, or his translationB fhwn the 
great Catholic poet of Spain— it will diffuse a healthy influence, raising the hearts of 
men ad aUiomJ* 

The same names — ^De Yere and Mao Oarthy— occur together in a 
letter of Longfellow's, which we have the privilege of printing for the 
first time. Some of our readers may have met in print, though only 
printed privately, two other letters of the great American poet, writtea 
in 1867 and 1862. The following is nearly ten years later. The 
Oambridge is, of course, the American Cambridge, near Boston. 



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Denis Florence Mac Carthy. 447 

" Cambridge, Jm$ 13, 1873. 
- Bbae Hb. Mao Gabtht, 

** Do 70a remember what Goethe says of Calderon ? 

'* ICany a beam the orient throws 
Bj the distant waters caught : 
He alone that Hafis knows 
Knows what Calderon has thought." 

" And this is what Mr. HiUard means bj his * Oriental element shining through it, like 
the ruddy heart of an opal.' 

* * Whaterer it is, it is something rery charming ; and I was truly delighted with your 
new Tolume^ as with the others. Accept my best thanks for your kind remembrance ; 
also for the two beautiful eonnets by which you dedicate to me * The Two Lorers of 
Hesren,' reoeiTed long ago. 

*' I am g^ to see that you dedicate one piece in the new rolume to Aubrey de Yere : 
a s w eet and noUe character, and a true poet, who well merits this recognition from 
your hand. 

'^ I am particularly pleased with the style in which the book is printed, and wish 
all the others were in this form. 

'^ Of our days in Bome I often think with a melancholy pleasure— melancholy 
becanse they are no more. Would th^ might come back again. Qnim 8abe f Per- 
bane they may. 

" iJways with great regard, 

" Yours faithfully, 

'^Hkoit W. LoironLLOw." 

8S. Ohiysanihas and Daria were the holy pair whose story waa 
draznatiBed by Calderon in the play that Longfellow refers to. His 
Toferenoe mast be our excuse for quoting Mr. Gladstone's opinion of 
Mr. Mac Carth/s yersion, expressed in a letter to the late Dr. Bussell 
of Maynooth, which lies before us. '* It was with much admiration/' 
says the most learned and literary of Prime Ministers, '' that I read hia 
translation of Calderon's Ikvo Lovers ofjBeaven.'* Our last annotation 
on Longfellow's cordial letter shall be to transcribe the dedicatory 
BonnetB, for which he thanks our Lrish poet who offers them, " in grate- 
ful reooUection of some delightful days spent with him in Bome." They 
axe dated, '« Dublin, August 24, 1869." 

I. 
** PensiTe within the Ooliseum's walls 

I stood with thee, O Poet of the West !— 
The day when each had been a welcome guest 
In San Olemente's Tenerable halls : — 

Ah, with what pride my memory now recalls 

That hour of hours, that flower of all the rest. 
When with thy white beard falling on thy breast — 
That noble head, that well might serre as Paul's 

In some diyinest Tision of the saint 

By Baffael dreamed, I heard thee mourn the dead — 
The martyred host who fearless there^ though faint, 

Walked the rough road that up to hearen's gate led : 
These were the pictures Calderon loredto paint 
In golden hues that here perchance hare fled. ^ j 

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44B Denis Florence Mac Carfhy. 



'< Yet take the colder eopy from my hand. 

Not for its own but for Thb MmsE's nke, 

Take it, as ihon, returning liome, wilt tdn 

From that dirineet loft Italian land 
Fixed shadows of the Beautiful and Grand 

In sunless pietores that with theson doth 

Beflections that may pleasant memories wake 

Of all that Baffael touched, or Angelo planned : — 
As these may keep what memory else might lose, 

So may this photograph of Terse impart 

An image, though without the natire hues 
Of Oalderon's fire, and yet with Catderon's art, 

Of what Thou lorest through a kindred Muse 

That sings in hearen, yet nestles in the heart." 

We plead ignorance of the authority that has made it the teat of 
merit laudar* a laudato, to be praised by those who themseLTes are 
praised by all ; but it is on this prindple that this mossio of kindly 
criticisms has been pieeed together. We might add the testimoi^ of 
Mr. S. 0. Hall, the founder of i}i<d Art Journal, who expresses his eat»- 
faction in contributing to " a memorial that will commemorate not only 
the lofty genius but the social and moral worth of one of the truest 
poets and best men it has been his lot personally to know, regajrd, and 
honour.'' But, perhaps, the warm Irish heart of the Laureate of Erin 
would be most pleased with the spirit in which Father James Casey— 
himself a poet though a hard-working parish priest of Elphin — sends 
his help to the Mac Oarthy Memorial : — 

" If the daim of your lamented friend to the proud title of Mae 
Carthy More be disputed, no one can question his ri^t to the title of 
Mac Caura MtUtsh — Mac Oarthy the Melodious. Had he neyer written 
a line but his inimitable translation of the Zauda Sion, or his beautafal 
verses on the Pillar Towers of Ireland and on Erin's Native Shamrock 
— the former emblematic of the solidity, the latter of the perpetual 
freshness, of his fame — ^his Memorial would have strong claims on evezy 
Soggarth Aroon and on every lover of faith and fatherland."* 

* Many of our readers in the country, not used to deal with oommittees or cor- 
porate bodies, may find it more couTenient to entrust dieir contributions towards 
this good work to the Ber. Matthew Bussell, S.J., St IVanoia Xarier's, Upper 
Gkrdiner-street, Dublin. 



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( 449 ) 



O'CONNELL: 

HIS DIARY FBOM 1 792 TO l802, AND LBTTER9. 
HOW lOB THS FIR8T TIXI PVBUSHBD. 

Part ni. 

SoiEB of these pages would haye little worth or interest if they were 
not written by O'Gonnell. After the second of the following entries 
(which ends with the startling announcement that he had began to 
write a noyel) the young law-student remoyed from London to Dublin. 

• • « 

Strnday, JatiMory Slst, 1796. — ^I did not get up this morning until 
ten, notwithstanding the many resolutions I haye made on the subject 
of lying in bed. I do not know when I shall be able to cure myseU 
of laziness. I lose through it the most precious part of the day. 

Were I to make a few remarks on my style, I should find much 
to blame. My sentences do not flow into each other with natural ease: 
they are unconnectedly jumbled together. It is not necessary to quote 
anything I haye written to illustrate these assertions ; eyen while I 
mention my faults I giye a specimen of them. I cannot help obserying 
thaty since I treated this subject before, my style seems to me to haye 
improyed. I read this day 48 pages of the " Bights of Women " by 
Mary Wolstoncraft, and 124 of Gibbon. In the '* Eights of Women '' 
there are many truths mixed with seyeral errors. The authoress cer- 
tainly possesses a strong mind. Her style is not good, though the 
lemgusLge is correct. She is too fond of metaphor ; images crowd too 
fast on the reader, and in the decoration we lose sight of the substance. 
I haye finished the first volume, and am told a second has lately ap- 
peared. 

Ihundoff, February l&th, 1796.— I this day finished the fifth yolume 
of Gibbon. I haye read, since my last entry in this journal, '' Oaleb 
Williams," by Gtoodwin, 8 yols., the Ist, 2nd, and 4th yols of Voltaire, 
which contain some of his Tragedies ; the Confession of J. J. Bousseau, 
1 yoL ; " Becueil Necessaire," 1 yol. I finished the " Manual of 
liberfy." I began yesterday a translation of Taputa*s questions from 
" Becueil Necessaire." 1 haye likewise begun a noyel, which I pro- 
bably neyer will finish.^ 

Saiwrday, December ^d, 1796.t— I z^^w resume my journal after 

* One feds euriouB to know what was the name and suhjeet of O'Connell's youth- 
f«l nof«L We are not aware that he or Butt erer attempted rene-making, like 
GnOtan, Curran, and most of the orators from Cioero to Thomas VmkCM Msaghar. 

t At this date he was in Duhlin, lodging with a Mrs. Jones. 

Vou X. No. 109. July. 1882. ,,g,^^, ,^ G^Oglc 



450 O'ConnelL 

almost a year of neglect, with a resolution to continue it with punctoa- 
litj for the future. I know not how long this resolution will last, but 
this I know that to persevere in it would be of the utmost utility to 
me. Did I but record the regular reading of the day, shame would 
preyent me from being negligent. The perusal of my Journal would 
be the best reward of diligence, the surest punishment of idleness. I 
read this day ISO pages of Gibbon. I read, and with attention, the 
first chapter of Smith's *< Wealth of Nations." Dr. Smith, in this 
chapter, proves that the product of Nature is increased by division, so 
that ten men can make more of a given work in one day than one 
man in ten days. He supports this position by the example of penmen, 
nailora, &c., and by reasoning. — 1st, argument, improvement of dexte- 
rity ; 2nd, no time lost as in the passing from one branch to another; 
drd| more ready invention of machineiy. '* It is the great multiplica- 
tion of the products of all the arts, in consequence of the division of 
labour, which occasions in a well-governed society that universal opu- 
lence which extends itself to the lowest rank of society," page 11. 
Each workman has to spare a great quantity of the produce of his 
labour, each can therefore easily provide the necessaries of life in g;reat 
quantities. The division of labour cannot take place in agriculture ; 
the com of a rich countiy cannot therefore always in the same degree 
of goodness come cheaper to market than that of the poor. The com 
of Poland is as cheap as that of France. 

I wrote a letter to John Hayes, and part of one to Henry Bald- 
wixL 

Monday f Jkeemher bth, 1796. — ^Yesterday read 145 pages of GKbbon. 
The edition was printed by Luke White,* in Dame-street, 1789. I tEIs 
day extracted from Gibbon a chronological list of the Emperors from 
Gallus, successor to Decius, a.d. 252 to the year 324, when Constantine, 
falsely called ** The Great," was sole emperor. I read and noted 8 
pages of Coke on Littleton, vol. 1st. I read Blackstone's " Commen- 
taries" to p. 38, vol. i. It is the small Dublin edition which I read 
at present. I mean to peruse it with the most accurate care and the 
most searching attention. I will afterwards read Christian's edition 
of the same work, in order to imprint on my mind more strongly the 
doctrines of my author. Blackstone possesses one very singular ad- 
vantage for a law writer : he is dear and not uninteresting. As for 
Coke's ''Institutes," were it not for the happy absurdities which 
abound in them, the pedantry of style, the obscurity of matter, and the 
loathsome tediousness of trifling would create insurmountable disgust. 
Wednesda^f Deeemher 7th, 1796.— Yesterday subscribed to the 
Dublin library in Eustace-street. I paid two guineas — a large sum 
of money for me, but I think I shall have very ample value for it. I 

• Anoettor of Lord Annaly. 

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aConnell. 451 

mean to spend four days in the week there. I am at present engaged 
in reading Whittaker's ** History of Manchester/' and Henry's 
** History of England." The former, I find, has an implicit belief in 
the genuineness of Ossian's Poems. On this subject I must read 
Blair's '' Critical Essay." I must remark that the names of Ossian's 
heroes were familiar to my infancy and long before I had heard of 
Macpherson or his translation, the characters of the poem were^ mostly 
known to me. 

I yesterday read the artide '' Gladiator " in the Encydopedie 
and in the Encyclopedia Brittanica. The latter seems if I may judge 
by this article, to be the work of compilers, the former that of Philoso- 
phers. They both agree in deducing the savage custom of Oladiatorial 
shows from perhaps the less savage one of sacrificing prisoners at the 
funerals of deceased kings or princes and heroes. 

I read yesterday 14 pages in folio of the preface to Bayle's 
** Dictionnaire Philosophique et Critique." I likewise read 15 pages 
of the preface to Dr. Henry's '' History of England." This day read 
18 pages of Whittaker*s " History ^of Manchester," and 79 pages of 
Henry's " History of England." 

Saturday , Decemher Uth, 1796. — ^I yesterday had a letter from my 
father, and must answer it by next post. I have very little to say in 
my Journal at present of my private life and opinions. Perhaps it 
would be more useful for me now to write on them than on the sub- 
jects of my late speculations ; certainly it would be more entertaining 
if at a future and distant period I should read the contents of this 
book, but unfortunately I have nothing to write on. My life, though 
not in any degree insipid, is monotonous and unchequered. I spend 
the greater part of the day in the library; in the perusal of a favourite 
author I feel not the time slip away. Was the library to remain open 
tUl one o'clock at night, I am sure I should frequently be there at tiiat 
hour. As it strikes ten, I am forced, very reluctantly, to leave it. 

I supped with Marshall, Bland, Fuller, and Hickson of the 
Brigade last night. We remained up until about two. I was not by 
any means intoxicated, nor was I much amused. Marshall paid the bill. 
I like Marshall very much, as everyone must who knows his character. 
He knows me not yet ; he wishes to be acquainted with my heart, my 
disposition. I will not hurry his knowledge of it, let time unfold by 
degrees that which it would not be easy to show at once. A man, I 
believe, meets with many difficulties in playing even his own character. 
I am anxious for the friendship of Marshall and Bland ; I think we 
shall make a valuable triumvirate. I can here indulge what elsewhere 
would be deemed vanity. I am thinking on paper — that is all. I 
yesterday read 30 pages of Henry's " England." I read within these 
two days a chapter of Oibbon. I now read much slower though I 
write much faster than I was accustomed to do. I read with more re- 
flection and profit. I inserted some notes from Henry's <' England." 

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452 0*ConnelL 

Tuesday, Deesfkber ISih, 1796. — ^I have let two days slip without 
adding a word to my Journal, but they were two days in whioh little 
was added to my knowledge. After Mass on Sunday I went to 
Bennett's, and we walked out to yiew the Volunteers. In the evening 
I read a play. Yesterday I read a few pages of Gibbon, and 48 pages 
of " La Cour de Berlin," par Madame Mirabeau. I have been much 
more di}igent this day, and read 70 pages of Henry's *' England," 54 
of Boswell's ''Johnson/' and the article on ''Dogs" in Buffon's 
" Natural History." I slso wrote a letter to my father in answer to 
one received on Saturday. I have little to speculate on at present. I 
have been looking out for a subject but found none to please my 
fancy. Many present themselves on a distant view ; but when I en- 
deavour to contemplate anyone nearer I find I am not able to say any- 
thing satisfactory on it. These remarks put me in mind of some one 
who makes a long discourse in pndse of silence. 

John Segerson is in town and has outbid my father for one of 
his own farms, that has been set up for sale imder a decree of the 
Court of Exchequer. This farm was sold under a mortgage which 
Segerson had granted to a Mr. Chute. It was on the subject of this 
farm that I wrote to my father. My life is very easy at present, and 
if I can contrive to raise 12 poimds on my note payable next November, 
I shall enjoy this winter more happiness than ever I tasted. The dark 
clouds which have frequently overshadowed my youthful horizon are 
withdrawn, or are, I hope, about to be withdrawn. I am of a sanguine 
disposition ; I have a relish for happiness, and I have often reflected 
OB that subject. I feel no present inconvenience, and the sum I have 
already mentioned would take away all apprehension of future diffi- 
eultiea. I enjoy the use of a moderate collection of well-chosen books 
of which I am growing daily fonder and more fond. And to this I 
live in a most pleasant family. Why should I not, therefore, be 
^PP7 ^ ^ ^^1 ^^^ 1 am so. The recollection of this winter will, 
during the course of my life, bring with it pleasure ; yet, perhaps, 
danger, difficulty, and distress are nearer to me than I am aware. 
This world of ours is so badly organised that the most penetrating 
judgment cannot assure the permanence of any blessing* I had a 
letter from Henry Baldwin yesterday, advising me to go to conf eesion 
to Mr. Beattie, a Jesuit [Father Betagh.] 

IHday, Deemher 2&rd, 1796.— I am sorry that so much time has 
elapsed since I wrote the last number. It would be advantageous to 
me loat the present and amusing in the future^ was I each day to put 
on paper the mode of thinking that rules the hour. I do not ezpxess 
myself accurately, I meant to say the thoughts of the day, 

I have read the remaining part of the first vol. of Boswell and 
the second, also 14 pages of the third. I dislike ^Boswell very much : 
yet why should I ? He was not a man of genius ; he ought not to 



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OConnelL 453 

lutTO obtruded liimself on the public notice. His " Life of JohnBon/' 
lunreYer, will long be read with pleasure. Boswell should have remem- 
bered that the public were not curious about his own affairs, his 
familj transactions, his opinions, &c. He says that he differed from 
Dr. Johnson on the right of the British Parliament to tax the colonies, 
and the affinnatiye was argued by the doctor in some pamphlets. Dr. 
Johnson said if he was a country gentleman he would pimish any 
tenant who Toted for any but the candidate of his master's choice. 
Johnson hated the name of a Whig ; he complained that the govem- 
ment was too weak ; that the king had too little power. Boswell too 
boasts of his Toryism! ! ! At the end of the eighteenth century, as it 
k pompously ezdaimed, such things still continue. We are all bar- 
barians; we have just civilisation enough to perceive that we are 
barbarians — ^that is all. 

I took my seat on Wednesday night in the Historical Society ; 
the admission fee a guinea and a half. The question .was a oompara- 
san between biennial and septennial Parliaments. I had prepared 
myself to speak in favour of the former. I did not : there was no 
debate. 

Boswell's wife remarked on his partiaHiy to Johnson that '' she 
had often seen a man lead a bear, but never saw a bear lead a man.'* 
The jealousy was truly feminine : she wished, I suppose, that nobody 
should lead her husband but herself. 

Saiwdajf, JDeember 24^, 1796.— I read 148 pages of Johnson. I 
read the Introduction to the Pagan and that to the Monastic Antiqui- 
ties of Ireland in '' Grose's Antiquities." 

Dr. Johnson doubted the appearance of ghosts. Murphy says 
that the doctor wished to believe it. Johnson said '* it was a point 
that at the end of 5,000 years was yet unsettled in the world ; all be- 
lief was for, all argument against it ; that is to say, men believed, they 
knew not why. Yet this universal belief is urged, I think, by John- 
son, in the *' Rambler," in favour of the opinion believed. Addison, 
or one of the writers in the ''Spectator," luis expressed that thought. 
With regard to myself, though I am perfectly convinced of the non^ 
existenoe of ghosts, I mean when I reason, when I make use of my 
faculties, I am convinced of it ; yet I have preserved a strong supersti- 
tious dread of them. Let me employ my judgment on tibds subject, 
let me controvert the existence of ghosts whenever it is mentioned in 
conversation. I have often declared tl^at I would wish to see a ghost, 
ihongh I fear I did not tell the truth ; but the assertion made a wrong 
impression on my mind. I granted to my mind that there were such 
things when I made any supposition concerning their appearance. 
Yet if there really were ghosts, it would be extremely useful for me to 
eea M6. There are none ; philosophy teaches there can be none. 
*HMiet,bornblaihidow! uaresl modnry, heoc*.' 

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454 O^ConnelL 

I have fonned a resolution to go in the night to the Abbey below 
Darrinane. I can by doing it give a practical proof of my disbelief in 
ghosts I would be ashamed that anyone thought I belieyed in them. 

Mr. Grose, or the editor, Mr. Ledwioh, whom I belieye I knew 
in London, in the affair of Denis Kean Mahony's robbeiy, says there 
were two religions in the Northern regions, the Celtic and the Scythian. 
The Sc3rthian got the upper hand in Britain about 300 y^ars before 
Ohrist. Whittaker holds partly the same opinion ; see '' Histoiy of 
Manchester." The groves were druidical, Cdtic ; the cirde of stones 
Scythian. The cromleachs were sepulchral monimients. The crom- 
leachs were erected by placing a large oblong square stone on three 
or four supporters. They are in the shape of altars. There is one 
not far from the top of Ck)mb-a-Kistih, near Darrinane, and another 
near Currane. I will examine both next summer. The cairns were 
heaps of stones raised in the figure of a cone. They were likewise 
monuments. It is still a custom, though almost worn out, to raise a 
pile of stones where any one met with an unexpected death. In 
lyeragh, I mean, this custom is fast expiring. There were loose heaps 
of stones near Drung Hill of which tradition tells a monstrous stoiy. 
They are twenty or thirty pacesone from the other ; yet is said they were 
created in orderto facilitate, by supporting its sides, thestrippingof anox. 
The ox was kiUed on this spot by Bran, a greyhound of Fin MacCoul, 
after a course that commenced in Ulster. The ox swam across the bay 
firom the opposite side ; the greyhoimd, unwilling to wet his skuii 
galloped round and arrived at this side as soon as the ox. 

Monday^ December 2eth, 1796.^1 read nothing this day but Bos- 
well's ''Johnson," 280 pages. I went to bed last night at one, and 
got up this morning at ten : this is too much sleep, and the indulgence 
must be corrected. '' I would be a philosopher but that gaiely breaks 
in upon me," said Edwards, a school-fellow of Johnson, to him; so 
should I too, but that in the gaiety of my heart I forget that sacred 
iove for what is fact, that noble spirit of rectitude that enlivens my 
retired moments. I hope that in spite of the allurements and false- 
hood of the world I shall yet find means to practise the lessons of 
wisdom. I know that I have not sufficent recollection to enable me 
to avoid lentangling myself in the opinions of a misjudging world. 
When I think by myself, my notions are in general very correct 

I dined yesterday at Bennett*s, who seems to enjoy as much 
happiness as most men I know. I received this day a letter from my 
father, containing a draft on Mr. Franks for £40. This money I am 
to pay to the college. 

ThuTidajf, December 29th, 1796.— I read on Tuesday 97 pageB of 
Boswell, to the end of the last volume. On the whole, I am bettor 
satisfied with this work than I thought I should have been. Indeed, 
I entered upon it with a very unfavourable impression of the merit of 

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O'ConnelL 455 

the performance. For a long time, nay until I was concluding the 
book, I considered it through the cloudiest medium of prejudice ; but 
the candid criticism of the reviewers has made me regard it in a new 
point of view. Boswell was certainly a well-disposed man. Johnson 
I admire and pity. I love him in one moment, and almost hate him in 
the next. He must, indeed, have been a great man, as his minutest 
words and actions are very well worth the relation. His mind was 
powerfully strong, his intellectual view most acute and distinct; yet 
his mind was clouded with many prejudices. He was intolerant of 
any opposition to his own orthodox opinions of Church and State. I 
do not assert that his opinions were strictly conformable to the doct- 
rines of the Church of England. On the contrary he fostered doctrines 
received by the Catholic Church, such as prayers for the dead. I be- 
lieve it was Johnson who said that he did not love a man who was 
sealous for nothing. Whoever said it, the sentiment is quite in 
unison with my opinion. The man whose mind is not forcibly excited 
by some object is not capable of receiving any strong impression. He 
is incapable of love or friendship. Give me the man whose generous 
mind is inflamed now with ardent enthusiasm, now is chilled with cause- 
less apprehension — ^I mean not the apprehension for self, which de- 
grades the man, but the apprehension which arises from excess of 
desire and anxiety for success. The man who conceives strongly is the 
man of genius ; he is the friend and the patriot. 

The French Fleet is arrived in Bantiy Bay. An officer whom 
chance has cast ashore was this day examined before the Privy CoundL 
The French will perhaps meet with a greater resistance than they have 
been, in all probability, led to believe. I know not what conjectures 
to make for the future. I love, from my heart I love, liberty; I do 
not express myself properly. Liberty is in my bosom less a principle 
than a passion ; but I know that the victories of the French would be 
attended with bad consequences. The Irish are not yet sufficiently 
enlighted to bear the Sun of Freedom. Freedom would soon dwindle 
into licentiousness, they would rob, they would murder. The altar of 
liberty totters when it is cemented only with blood, when it is supported 
with carcases. The liberty which I look for is that which would 
increase the happiness of mankind. To the service of this liberty I 
have devoted my life and whatever talents I have or may acquire. 

I attended the Historical Society last night. I spoke twice 
against the partition of Greece into small portions. I knew the part 
of Blackstone in which we were examined better than any other indi- 
vidual. 

Saturday, Ikeemher ZUt. 1796.— With this day [closes the year: 
Twelve months since I wrote the same sentence in my Journal. During 
this period I have advanced somewhat, though not much, in science ; 
the summer was almost entirely thrown away. I have had many 

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456 0*C<mnelL 

happy moments daring the year. I have had many miserable ones. 
I have declined or rather suddenly fallen off in the opinion of my 
nnole ; indeed, I knew not what it was to be economical in London. 
I spent foolishly what I bitterly lamented since. . During this year 
there has been no action of mine which ought to bring regret to my 
eoBsdence or shame to my cheek. I have done nothing which should 
exalt the self-love of my heart into approving joy. The only things I 
have acquired are something more of knowledge and firmness in the 
ways of life; somewhat more of prudence in the conduct of my 
opinions ; this indeed is a late acquirement ; I had it not in the country. 
I have added to the stock of my miscellaneous knowledge. My ac- 
quaintance with the law has not been much, it at all improved. 

I was yesterday informed that Darby Mahony was dead. I he&zd 
it with real concern. I remember with delight the commencement of 
our intimacy ; when infants, or a little older we were kept asunder by 
family dissensions; when we became acquainted, our former distance 
rendered the change more pleasing. I remember, as the happiest 
days of my life, a couple of Sundays on which he was allowed to join 
us at Garhen. Our intimacy increased; we hunted together, we were 
at school together, we barred out Linahan, our master together. 
Darby on this occasion did signal service ; armed with a sword, he 
attacked linahan who was forcing open a door filled with stones; thia 
was at Bahaile's ; the difference of the schools breaking up was only 
oneday !!! ThePassionWeekof 1790 we had this unfortunate quarrel 
which caused a total coldness until our departure for Harrington's in the 
summer of the same year. I saw him not imtil 1798 ; in February we 
met in London. I was come from Douai, he from the campaign with 
Brunswick. As we walked down the Haymarket, I showed him some 
caricatures ; we were to have come with him and Marcus O'Sullivan to 
Ireland* The General inteif ered and sent us to Lejans. I met him 
again in the summer of 1795 in Iveragh; we were together at one 
hunting n:iatch at Femboy ; he shot a hare at Oonnagh the first even- 
ing. His conversation was always agreeable to me, but he was in 
general very silent. He sang pretty well : I have heard him sing 
"Wolfe's song ** Why, soldiers, why?" and " Immortal was his soul." 
Kay, there are a few words he was fond of repeating and which I now 
insert, because they appear to me as the sacred reliques of a friend : 
'< Haniman diaoul," says Darby, '' I'll dislocate your jiggling bcHie." 
He had a great talent for natural drollery. He followed me the day 
X left Oarhen for London, in October, '95, but did not overtake me, 
though he came as far as the top of Drunghill. His brother did, and 
we sheltered from a violent shower at a forge in Glanbei^ I was 
told by John that he went out in despondency to the West Indies. 
Too well, alas ! have the forebodings of his heart been justified. Oh, 
Darby, oh, my friend, accept this tribute from him that loved (you 1 

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OConnelL 457 

Bat already are the particles that composed his frame diaaolyed and 
abeorbed by the elements to which they belonged. How soon will 
this be the case with me ? and who will then shed a tear over my 
graTe? Oh, that I were remembered by some soft, sympathetic 
heart, that the gay and the thoughtless may sigh oyer my tomb, that 
the sedate and grave may moumf ally bend over the spot that contains 
my ashes. But, as life is short, let us acquire what knowledge we 
can ; and for my part I will endeayour to be as happy as I can. I 
will make my heart a heart of love ; that and that alone is the way to 
be happy. 

I have read Bolingbroke*s *' Vindication " of his ownoonducttowards 
the Jacobite party, which he had joined in his exile in France in the 
yeaxB 1713, 1714, 1715, in a letter to Sir William Wyndham in 1717. 
His letter must have injured the Fk^tender's parly yery seyerely. He 
was a rigid bigot, a man without talents or virtue. Bolingbroke seems 
to haye been innocent. Bead to 107, yoL i., the edition in quarto by 
Mallet I haye read the first section of the third chapter of Henry's 
^' England,'' on the British Diyisions. The Bomans diyided Englaad 
into four proyinces— Flayia Csssariensis, Britannia Prima, Seounda, 
and afterwards Magna Csdsariensis; and a fifth was added, called 
Yalentia, after the Emperor Yalens. I read the Preface and 24 pages 
of the '^ Transactions of the B.I. A.," the 19th chapter of Qibbon, and 
Johnson's poems of < London," and the '' Vanity of Human Wishes.'* 
I read the third Essay of Watson's ' Chemistry,' on salts. 

2WM20y, «/biMMfy dr<f , 1797. — I do not mean to write much; yat 
I haye much to write. I haye many resolutions to form, I haye many 
pemicious habits to disclaim, but I must defer all to another time. I 
read since I last wrote 41 pages of BoHngbroke's works ; they contain 
"BeflectionsonEzile,'* and the first number of the ^'Occasional Writer," 
The first are elegantly written, as is eyerything that Bolingbroke 
wrote. 

I was on Monday admitted to the Lawyers' ArtiUeiy, and haye 
written to my undo to get leaye, that is, in fact, money, to enter into 
their corps. I wrote to-day to Terrie McCarthy. 

TkwTMiay^ Janmry 5th, 1797. — I read 28 pages of Bolingbroke. 
Had the Allies succeeded in pladng the Crown of Spain on the head 
of the Emperor's brother, the balance of power would be exposed to 
the same danger to rescue it from which was the purpose of the war. 
I also read 30 pages of Henxy. The learning of the Druids is a 
matter of mere conjecture. They committed nothing to writing. I 
haye read the '' Trayels of Anadiarsis the Younger ;*' this work is a 
masterly production. 

I dined yesterday with the three Bices in Eustace-street. Stephen 
seems to possess more information than any many I know. How 
diff erent| how superior is his knowledge to mine ! He made me creep 

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458 The Dying Infidel. 

into my ignorance, yet I am at times apt to be vain of what little I 
know; perhaps I may be learned when at his age. He is by no means 
obstmsiTe in his learning. I do not mean to write much, as my fire 
is out I hare again been reading Watson's " Chemistry/' likewise 
Henxy's '* England/' He beUeves in the authenticity of Ossian's 
poems; he must have a strong faith. 

The other day a man called Ireland endeayoured to pass off a 
piece called '' Yortigem^d Bowena,' ' as a play of Shakespeare's. The 
play was very bad, no proof of its not being Shakespeare's, who wrote 
a wonderful deal of nonsense, and has been the occasion of much 
more, like his Falstaff , with regard to wit. I read lately a treatise on 
the '' Police of London," &c. &c. Distinction of property is a great 
evil ; the spirit of self is a great evil ; the love of superiorily is a great 
evil. Man is a complication of evils. Were I bom in the wilds of 
America, I should spend my life in destroying the beasts of the field, 
and principally my f ellow-b^te, man ; but, bom in Ireland, education 
has poured the milk of human kindness into my bosom. I would, and 
I trust I will serve man. I {eel the sacred and mild warmth of 
patriotism. I will endeavour to make the narrow cirde of friends and 
relations happy, and give cheerfulness and ease to the peasantry I may 
one day rule over. I will endeayour to give liberty to my country, 
and increase the knowledge and virtueof the human kind. Eternal 
Being ! Thou seeet the purity of my heart and the sincerity of my 
promises ; should I appear before thy august tribunal after having per- 
formed them, shall I not be entitled to call for my reward ? 



THE DYING IJ^IDEL. 

BT 8I8TSR MARY AOVES. 



THE end of all is very near me now, • 

The last cold sweat lies beaded on my face, 
And no hand wipes the death-dew from my brow, 
Though many angels fill this haunted place — 
Angels of evil— not Qod's holy ones ! 
This is no place for beings such as they, 

Nor I fit company for them to keep, 
But as the vultures round their hoped-for prey, 
So watch these heralds of eternal sleep, 

Whose very breath seems only smothered groans ! 

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The Dying Infidel. 459 

^' Eternal sleep !" Yes, once I babbled bo 1 

Death was a phantom only then to me, 
A gate through which all men but I must go, 

Never a personal reality 
Till now, when I have reached the mystic door. 
But is death sleep ? and is it restful sleep ? 

Or but a search for rest unsatisfied, 
That as the moments into ages creep, 

Grows sadder as its craving is denied ? 
Can death be this — and is it nothing more ? 

Ood ! these spirits dread, whose faces grim 
Mock at me, now give ground for darker fears. 

Nay, not to God make I appeal ! to Him 
No prayer has passed my lips for many years, 
He would not hear me now, — nor will I seek 

Help I despised in life, since I must go 
Where those unpitying fingers beckon me, 

1 go at least unconquered ; men shall know 
I die as I have lived, and they shall see 

* If at death's touch my spirit hath grown weak. 

But, oh ! how awful are those demon forms, * 

like unto whom I soon myself shall be. 
When what of me can die has fed the^worms ! 
I emnot face that future fearlessly ! 
Hy vaunted courage is an empty boast. 
As on each fearful countenance I look, 

My reason totters, and my spirit quails, ^ 

Eor I can read them like an open book, 
All full of horrors, each with diflferent tales. 
And on each face the pain of something lost. 

Lost, lost for ever, and beyond all hope, 

The vision of the Beautiful and Good 1 
Condemned for ever in the dark to grope, 

Not daring on the blessed to iDtrude, 

Since for them there exists no further grace. 
And now for me no further grace can be, 

No further mercy, even from the One 
Whom men call Saviour, — ^for not even He 

Could pardon and forget what I have done, 
80 shall I never, never see His Face. 

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46o The Dying Infidel. 

All ! I remember in my early jean, 

That hoped-for visioxi seemed a beacon light. 
To lure me heayenwards, and all other fears 

Were nought, to fear of losing this delight. 
I had been taught to think the bliss supreme. 
And now, when for long years his onoe-lored Name 

I have not uttered saye in mock disdain, 
What would I giye one last appeal to frame, 

To Him for pardon, and to haye again 
The faith I laughed at as a puerile dream ! 

But it is just that I who haye unmoyed 

Listened to anguished cries for priestly aid. 
From dying lips, of those, who then had proyed 

Their trust in proud Philosophy betrayed, 
Should now myself sigh for that aid in yain ! 
That I who drowned in mirth the trembling prayer 

That rose &om hearts once infidel, to Him, 
Whom they acknowledged in their dire despair, 

As dormant faith awoke their souls within, 
Should, in my turn, dare not to pray again. 

Open the window ! let the light come in ! 

Ah! I forget that there are none to hear ! 
That of all'^those so eager comw to win 

My f ayouTi none in tibds dread hour axe near, 
Scared o£P, it may be, by my fraatic cries. 
So must I go to meet my Judge alone ! 

Within the shadows of eternity. 
Meeting the Infinite and the Unknown 

In that strange place whose border-land I see, 
As earth-light darkens— fades-Hud quiyering dies ! 



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( 46i ) 



THE MONK'S PBOPHECY. 

▲ TAUi. 
mBO*BI 

CHAPTER XIII. 

THX ALlCS-HOirBS. 

Whbr the day and the hour came for their ramble, Mrs. Barry arrived 
ponctaally, canying a small basket. Sydney, as was her habit, had 
been to an early Mass already ; but Mrs. Barry had to remain within 
to give Jim his breakfast comfortably, so she said it was as well for 
them to proceed on their way. " 'Tis early, dear; but yon know 'tis 
little time I does have to stop on my knees, and I like to be in a bit 
early, so I can collect myself and think of what the Lord is going to 
do for me, praise be to his holy name ! Sunday is a blessed day, dear 
heart ; there's rest and peace in it for the poor. Often I heard grand 
ladies saying they didn't know what to do with themselyes on a Sunday. 
' 'Twas a dull day, a horrid day, they had nothing to do.* Dear knows 
it used to make me sorry in away, and I used to say to myself , maybe 
after all, 'twas a fine thing to be bare of the things of this world, for 
they stand between one and the Lord, like. Sunday is a blessed and 
a pleasant day for the poor ; and 'tis only the poor value it, maybe, 
though they're ignorant itself, and can't have the understanding of 
their betters." 

After a pleasant walk through the bright, sharp atmosphere, they 
arrived at the Almshouse Church. Mrs. Barry motioned Sydney to 
go up to one of the seats opposite the altar, and took a place herself 
in one of the side aisles. 

When the girl had prayed for some time, she sat up and fixed her 
eyes on the altar. It was a beautiful one, of pure, cold marble, covered 
with snowy linen. The lights shone softly down upon the delicate 
flowers, all making an exquisite combination of created things around 
their Divine Creator, who, as was his wont, in all the circumstances of 
his earthly tragic life, remained hidden there except to the eyes of 
faith. 

The bell commenced to toll gently, and worshippers began 
silently to fill the seats. A small side door, just opposite to Sydney, 
opened, and several old ladies entered and took their places in the pew. 
The last one was leaning on the arm of a young girl, who at once 
attracted Sydney's attention. She was exceedingly handsome, tall 
and slender, witii a slight air of hauteur in the pose of the head. The 
face was a pale clear olive, with firm scarlet lips, and large dark eyes 

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462 The MonKs Prophecy, 

that were splendid in their beauty. " It is they/' Sydney said to her- 
self , gazing intently at the strange girl, who*bent to put a cushion be- 
fore her companion's feet ; when she raised her head, she paused for a 
moment looking towards the altar, then turning a little, she encountered 
Sydney's earnest eyes. She returned the gaze with one as searching 
and intent ; then she passed out of the pew, went down the side aisle, 
and up into the choir. A few moments more and the little bell tinkled. 
The priest came out of the sacristy, preceded by the white-robed 
acolytes, and Sydney tried to turn her thoughts to the holy sacrifice 
about to be offered. The girl lifted her pure yoimg heart to Gt>d, and 
felt more peaceful and less desolate than she had done since her mother's 
death. She felt nearer God, more protected in this little church than 
in any other she had been in for some time. She wondered waa the 
sweet soprano voice floating out in such a pathetic Agnu» Dei 
coming from the heart of the dark-eyed stranger ; and she thought 
she would like to know her. When Mass was over, and when the 
music was evidently at an end, Sydney joined Mrs. Barry, and they 
went out and round to a low iron gate, which admitted them into the 
alms-house grounds. 

Those houses were built, almost a centuiy and a half ago, by a 
benevolent lady, who had once suffered the stings of poverty herself, 
and who came in for considerable property when she was too old, or 
perhaps too wise to put it to any more personal purpose than gratifying 
her propensities for doing good. They were very pretty, built in the 
Gothic style, consisting of three rooms each : a little sitting-room at 
one side of the tiny hall, a baby kitchen on the other, and a large 
airy bedroom above them. The houses formed two sides of a square. 
The wall of the churchyard,'covered with ivy and all manner of creeping 
plants, ran down the third side, and on the fourth, on a lower level* 
was a high mossy bank, shadowed by three pine-trees standing, at 
regular intervals, beneath whose pendent boughs the river swept by 
slowly, with soft lappings and gurgles. A wide gravelled walk went 
all roimd the little demesne, and in the centre numerous flower-beds, 
having various owners, raised their brown bosoms from the emerald 
sward. Many green lancelike shoots, drawn forth by the wooing 
spring breath, gave promise of abundant bloom and perfume ; while 
anemones, crocuses, and all manner of old-fashioned early flowers 
lifted their fresh, new-bom beauty to the colouring sunbeams ; prim- 
roses and violets showed their blue-and-gold loveliness on the bank by 
the river, and a few crows, perched on the swaying tree-tops, seemed 
only to intensify the tranquillity of the place with their noisy cawing. 

The Charity was in the hands of certain trustees, who elected the 
oandidates for admission ; and of applicants, it is needless to say, there 
were always a large number. They were to be of gentle birth and of 
irreproachable character, the kindred of the foundress having fint 

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The Monk's Prophecy; 463 

daim. The houses were always kept neatly papered, painted, and in 
perfect order. The fortunate possessor of each little abode was to 
hare, besides, acertain quantity of ooal, twenty pounds a year, so many 
a gentle lady was enabled by this kindly institution to retain the re* 
refinement and independence to which* she was accustomed, and was 
saved from the oftentimes cold charity of relations. When one occu* 
pant was laid away in the quiet churchyard hard by, or in some 
ancestral Tault elsewhere, as it sometimes happened — for many persons 
receive attentions when dead'that were denied 'them living — another- 
got possession of the three pretty rooms, and accounted herself happily 
treated, atrlast, by that fortune that had been so fickle. 

'^Ah, lucky enough, there's Miss White herself," exclaimed Mrsr 
Barry, as they entered the gate, and she walked rapidly after a small 
slight figure that was proceeding along the walk by the river. Sydney 
followed slowly, and when she came near, Mrs. Barry said : '' This is 
the young lady, ma'am." 

^ How are you, my dear ?" said the little lady, coming to meet 
her, and taking the girPs hand in hers. '' I am veiy glad you came ; 
Mrs. Barry told me all about you : a sad story, my child, but your 
story won't always be sad." 

The girl's eyes filled with tears, and the expression of mute appeal 
in the young face touched the little lady still more. 

" It won't be always sad, dear," she continued, cheerfully. '' God 
gives the sunshine as well as the rain to bring forth my flowers. — I 
hope you like flowers. — I must show you all my buds." 
"I love them," said Sydney. 

*' Do you ? Then we are friends already. Come round this way ; 
I was going to see a small plantation of white violets I have in Uie 
ixmier of the bank. TU show you everything by-and-by; but first 
come in and pay me a grand ceremonious visit, sitting on my best 
chair, and Mrs. Barry will make us a cup of tea; Mrs. Barry is a famous 
hand at making tea, you must know ;" and diiatting pleasantly, the 
little lady made Sydney fancy she had known her always. 
« i;ifiss White belonged to that much maligned and despised sister- 
hood who manage to get along through this vale of tears, even to the 
gates of heaven, without masculine aid. She was an old maid : the 
gentlest, kindest, and prettiest old maid to be seen. She was seemingly 
about sixty years old ; her face was small, pale, but singularly un- 
wrinkled, with the loveliest silver hair lying on her smooth brow, 
gentle blue eyes, and an upright, slight little figure. She laid aside 
her shawl and an old black hat when she got into the hall, and 
led Sydney into the sitting-room. She wore a black cashmere dress, 
a small white lace square, folded cornerwise and crossed upon her 
bosom; and a large white muslin apron. On her head was a graceful 
little cap of black lace, with a small bow of crimson ribbon. 

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464 ^^ MonX^s Prophecy. 

The atting room was a picture of neatnees, eyeiything, of ooune, of 
the eiinplest de8cfiptio]i,|biit ehowiiig eridences of taste and refinement. 
It reminded Sydney of The Hut. The bedroom was equally pretty: 
there was a beautiful coloured engraTing of ''the Man of Sorrows" 
at the head of the bed, one of " Mater Dolorosa '' hung at the foot. 
A little altar, with a burning lamp before it, was at one side, and OTer 
the mantel-piece was a large photograph of a young man in a sailor's 
unifonn. The windows of the bedroom looked away across the treesand 
riyer to where mountains lay purple in the distance. 

Sydney and the little lady chatted pleasantly while the tea was 
being made, and the latter, always impressionable and sympathetic, 
was yeiy much won by the desolate child's simple account of herself. 
She perceired at once that the laundress had not exaggerated her 
stoxy, and that the orphan was by birth, education, and natural in- 
stinct a gentlewoman. She had a quick perception of character, and 
as she thought of the guileless girl living so utterly alone in the heart 
of the hurrying city she was thrilled with compassion. 

Mrs. Barry brought in the tea, and was orerjoyed to see Sydney 
looking so happy. 

'' We have had a great chat, Mrs. Barry," said the little lady, 
*' and we are going to be great friends." 

<< Whoeyer has you for a friend has the Lord on her side," replied 
Mrs. Barry; "I di^'t see a poor day since the one I met you." 

'' Mrs. Barry has a silver tongue, my dear," said Miss White, with 
a sweet little laugh ; '' I always tell her she'll make me proud, and 
then we will be punished together." 

** 'Deed, then, we wont ; not a punish," replied Mrs. Barry, with 
confidence; " I only tell the truth. 'Tisn't a right thing to conceal 
the truth, so it isn't ; but you hide a good deed you done, as if 'twas a 
man you murdered. Here now, ma'am, I hope the tea is to your 
liking.' 

When the little lady was satisfied that Sydney had eaten as much 
as she possibly could, she called Mrs. Barry and told her to take her 
own luncheon, and they would go out and see if MissLestrange was to 
found, that she might make Miss Ormsby 's acquaintance. Miss White 
put on her hat and shawl, and they walked on until they came to No. 5. 
A young girl was sitting in the window, who nodded with a bright 
smile, stood up, and opened the door. 

*' Ida, dear, I have made a new friend," said Miss White, " and I 
want you to be a sharer. This is Miss Ormsby ; and this is Miss 
Lestrange, my child," turning to Sydney, " my gardener, my every* 
thing. An officer's daughter, also, like yourself." 

Ida Lestrange put out her hand frankly. " I saw her at Mass," 
she said. *' I was wondering who you were," she continued, looking 
at Sydney, with a radiant smile. " You must know I'm extremely 
clever, and detect a stranger at once." ,,g.^,^^, ,^ GoOgk 



The Monks Prophecy. 465 

" "Well, xny dear, will you be clever enough to show my young 
friend, all the flowers present and to come, and I'll go in to speak to 
your aunt for a few moments ?" 

'< Yes, I will," said Ida, taking her hat off the little table, <' and 
I'U oonyert Miss Ormsby to my method of cultivation. Miss White is 
such an obstinate little person, Miss Ormsby, she dings to her own 
ideas in a most imgodly manner.'* 



CHAPTEB XIV. 

2?EW FBISNDS. 

Ths two girls walked down the pathway. '^ I'll bring you first to 
the bank, which is our especial pride," said Ida : '* I suppose because 
it is beautiful without our aid — though it was I planted the violets and 
primroses. Sometimes I love looking at the [river more than the 
flowers, perhaps because the action of it is more evident : it carries me 
away on its bosom." 

*• We had a river by our house at home," answered Sydney, " and 
a grand waterfall ; it used to look so beautiful in the moonlight." 

'* So you also grew up amidst the music of rushing waters ?" said 
Ida. '^ How I would miss its sweet moanings out of my life. I like 
to put words to it : sometimes joyous ones, sometimes sorrowful. The 
flow fits into all. I laugh at myself then, and remember it is my 
mood, and not the water that changes. Are you fanciful?" 

" No, I don*t think I am," answered Sydney. " I can't think of 
things, but I like to hear of the beautiful things other people fancy. 
G^&ey used to make pictures out of the falls, and clouds, and fire, 
and then he'd make me see them." 

" Who was Geoffrey ?" 

'' Major MacMahon's son — some of our friends — ^they are in Italy 
now, Gheoff is delicate : you would like Geoff very much, I'm sure ; 
he wishes to be a painter." 

" Does he ? Is he young P A painter, and in Italy !'* 

'' He is younger than I." 

" I have a brother a painter. He is in Italy, too," and Ida smiled 
till her wonderful eyes grew larger." 

''Is it not well for you ?*' said Sydney, looking at her seriously* 
'' I have no one in the world; but Eustace is like my brother. I am 
sure it was just the same, but he is far away too." 

" We both seem to be as lone as the oft-quoted pelican," answered 
Ida. *'I don't remember anyone belonging to me but aunt and 
frank; we were home with aunt when my father and mother 
died abroad ; — ^we have relations, of course, but they ignore us. It 
would be ruinous to notice people living in an alms-house.'*^ i 

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466 The Monks Prophecy. 

•'I have no one," said Sydney, "no one but Mrs. "WyndiU, my 
mother's friend. We were to go to her when I was educated. I have 
not heard from her yet : isn't that being very lonely ?" She looked 
at Ida with a such patient, yearning expression in the violet eyes that, 
like Miss White, the girl was touched. She drew her hand within her 
arm, clasped it, and said brightly : 

" WeU, are we not getting on vei^ well, nevertheless. I think we 
both look as thriving as if we were rich and great, and had re- 
lations and cousins within and without the forbidden degrees. I 
was never lonely : I was too young to regret my father and mother, 
and I was always occupied. When I was very wee, aunt made me mind 
her garden, and Miss White made me mind my lessons, then I went to 
school ; now I teach music, and sing in the choir, and do any amount 
of things." 

" You must be happy V said Sydney, gazing on her with great 
admiration. 

'' I am happy when Frank is at home," said Ida. '' Life is half 
empty without him, leaving room for occasional sad echoes. He will 
be home this summer, please God. I'll be as happy then as a queen 
in a child's story." 

'' To whom do you teach music ?" asked Sydney. " Is it at school 
you teach P" 

" Not at all ; I*m done with school those years past. Private 
tuitions ; five girls. I go to their houses three times a week. Pm paid 
also for singing in the choir, so I'm quite a money -making young 
woman." 

*' Are you not wonderful to be earning money? You don't look 
much older than I." 

'' I am sure I am," answered Ida, '' I look on you as 'an infant 
whom I should protect, though you are tall. I was twenty-one my 
last birthday. How old are you P" 

*' I will be seventeen in a few months. That isn't so young; and 
yet I don't feel as if I were growing up ; perhaps it is because I am 
not clever." 

*' You'll have some of the child in you when you're an old 
woman," said Ida, laughing, '' like that dearest of little women. Miss 
White." 

* " Oh, is she not kind ?" answered Sydney ; " and I can't tell her 
how grateful I am. I'm sure she will let me come to see her again : if 
you know how much it is to me. I wm so lonely, and sometimes I 
used to be afraid." 

" Of course she will let you come to see her again. If you didn'i 
come her gentle little heart would be troubled lest she hadn't been 
kind enough to you ; and you have to come and see me, too, you know, 
a weighty event that will take a special day to itself, ^ou are not to 

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The Monk's Prophecy. 467 

come into, and to go out of our lives like a flaehing comet. I*m sure 
we "will get on well together. Do you like me ?" 

'' I do, greatly/' replied Sydney, with such emphasis that they both 
laughed. 

" Well, I like you also," said Ida. " 'Tis a true case of love at first 
sight, though I must tell you I am not at all enthusiastic about personB.N 
I am less disappointed when I reserve such emotion for things.'' 
** But if you be disappointed in me ?" asked Sydney, inquiringly. 
" I don't think I shall. You're as transparent as the river ; — ^look 
down at the soft white clouds and shadowed heavens." 

''But, after all, you don't see through the water," said Sydney, 
gazing into it, '' it only reflects ; the beauty isn't gone through. Is 
that the way with a person, do you think ?" 

•* Very often," replied Ida, laughing, " we have all a lower stratum 
of mud, in which abide unutterable slimy monstrosities. When we are 
stirred up their ugly heads come to the surface. I have an intimate 
knowledge of my own peculiar little monsters. Have you a lively 
eonadousness of yours P" 

'' No, I have not," said Sydney, shaking her head. <'I don't know 
what is my predominant passion. I should like to know." 

'' It must be that they are all so fully developed and interwoven 
that you can't take hold of a separate one," answered Ida; ''your 
little person is quite suggestive of a temple full of evil spirits." 

The two girls walked up and down talking more of themselves and 
eaeh other than looking about them. Nature attracted nature by that 
subtle odic force, which is utterly unexplainable. Some magnetic fluid 
was poured into Sydney's soft temperament from the strong, confident, 
self-reliant disposition of her new acquaintance. She felt strengthened, 
protected and as if there were no longer anything to fear ; and Ida on 
her side felt a sudden sense of protectiveness that made her feel addi- 
tionally stronger, and a sense of relief in being able to pour herself out 
to another, who not alone sympathised and understood her, but who 
had feelings somewhat akin, though difPering perhaps in intensity. 

Bulwer Lytton says, '' Nought but youth can echo back the soul of 
youth." There is truth in the assertion. Later years cease to echo, 
for they have come to perceive that what they once thought a word of 
divine meaning was but an empty sound ; but later years are more 
sympathetic. Youth is essentially self-absorbed, and is generally 
interested in the heart-revelations of friendship, as much for the sake 
of the cause as the friend, such cause being possible in its own life ; 
the sympathy of experience must be repressive rather than enthu- 
siastic, and the cool finger that would disillusion is as chilling to the 
hot heart of the young as an obstructing iceberg to a northward bound 
ahip. 
; Who can persuade the young man standing on the shores of life 

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468 The Monk's Prophecy. 

in the growing sunrise that he will not sail the illimitable ocean before 
him with the triumph he anticipates P The wondrous 'glory of the 
morning fills the arching skies with intolerable splendour — colouring 
every tiny dewdrop with the hues of hearen. Miracles of fragrant 
creatures slip out of the dark soil into floral existence. Out of the 
earth's mighly womb, which takes all things back and gives all things 
forth, spring the golden com, the waving grasses, the great forest- 
trees ; and before him lies the deep-hearted sea, laughing in the light, 
singing in its monotone of softened thunder a psean to the illuminating 
sun. Who can persuade him that he will fail to be happy with the 
mysterious beauty of that external life above, around, beneath him, 
saturating his thrilling senses with subtle influences, feeding him 
with its strong, vivifyfng breath ; and the strange, emotional complex 
existence within him, half human, half divine — an intelligenoe that can 
track the stars into infinitude, and a heart that can glow with love f 
He may be happy, perchance, but it will be with a lower or a 
higher happiness thak that of which he dreamed in the morning of 
life. 

Aftev some time Miss White came out, joined the giris, and showed 
eveiy bud and blossom to Sydney. The hours stole away so rapidly 
that she was startled and ashamed when Mrs. Bany emerged from 
Miss White's kitchen, and said : *' Miss Sydney, dear, 'tis on the point 
of four. I wouldn't mind only for Jim's dinner." 

" Oh, was it not a shame for me to stay so long ?" she said, '' you 
must be tired of me; why didn't you call me, Mrs. Barry? FU never 
do it again." 

** Yes, you will, my dear, very often," said Miss White; " you wiU 
come to see me soon again? I should call on you," she added, with 
gentle dignity, " but I am not able to walk far, and youth mustn't 
stand on ceremony with age." 

'' Oh, no, I wouldn't expect it," said Sydney. "I shall be only too 
glad to come sometimes. This has been a happy day." 

« I would call on you," said Ida, '* but my time is too valuable to 
waste on conventionalities, at least for the next week ; but she is 
to come to me next Sunday, Miss White, for her afternoon tea, and we 
shall have a long walk by the river, shall we not, Miss Ormsby ?" 

''I shall be delighted," answered Sydney, looking at her new 
friends with grateful eyes." 

<< Come to Mass here as you came to-day," said Ida, '' and we 
shall have a long, and, [I hope, a sunny day to weave wonders out of." 

The little lady kissed her kindly ; Ida walked with her to the gate, 
kissed her also, and then stood looking after her as she and Mrs. 
Barry went away, with a sad expression in her radiant eyes. '^Pdor 
little thing," she murmured, « she is lonelier far than I am, and how 
patiently she bears it. She is one to live more in others than herself | 

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The Monk's Prophecy. 4^9 

and my own life is eveTything to me. I wish I oould forget the indi- 
viduality of Ida Leetrange. 

While Ida was musing with her white hands clasping the iron-gate, 
Sydney and Mrs. Barry walked on greatly exhilarated by their kindly 
reception at the Alms-house. ^* Oh, Mrs. Barry, isnH Miss Lestrange 
beautiful ? I thought she was growing handsomer every moment. 
Sometimes her face looks as if it were all eyes, they get so large and 
earnest. Is her aunt nice, like Miss White?" 

*^ She is, then, and real good, but not the same as Miss White, 
though ; she is grander, like, and more distant in herself. I belieye 
they were great quality at one time, and Mrs. Huxstone is always 
bringing up the old times to let one know it; and, sure, 'tis a great 
change for the dear lady to be there, though there isn't a neater place 
in the world. Jim often gives them a hand ; but 'tis little he is able 
to do, poor boy." 

'* Ah, 'tis a pity he is so lamed," said Sydney; "but he is a great 
company to you." 

«< 'Deed, then, he is, dear, the best company in the world, a fine 
eoholar, able to read and write; lucky enough 'tis his left hand 
that went. Sore and sorry I was the day he enlisted in the Dragoons, 
but when I seen him in the sojer's clothes, dear knows I thought it 
would be a pity he was anything else, he looked so fit to wear them. 
Then he went out to foreign parts, to fight in one |of them wars they 
thinks so little about ; and, before one year, my fine boy came home to 
zne — ^with one arm and sixpence a day." 

" It was very sorrowful," answered Sydney. 

*• Twas, dear, sorrowful and hard to bear ; to see my boy's life 
destroyed because one country wanted to get something in spite of 
another. I wish we never had fighting, killing, and maiming thou- 
sands for the sake of a bit of land, and they'd say a great deal to a 
poor person for keeping a hoult of an acre. 'Tis well he has the six- 
pence a day itself, for he wasn't long in ; and a short way sixpence a 
day goes in feeding a man that's well able to eat his share. He 
grudges himself enough, my poor boy, thinking he is heavy on me ; 
but sore 'tis a happy thing for me to have him to work for. Only for 
him Pd be veiy lonesome since God took my little girl. Everything 
tbe Lord does is for the best, dear heart; maybe we get our greatest 
comfort out of our greatest grief." 

Mrs. Barry left Sydney ^at her lodgings, and then hastened home 
to see after Jim's material well-being. 

That evening Sydney wrote a letter to Nellie, and told her about 
her new acquaintances. When she had finished it, she lay down on 
the sofa, thinking over the day, speculating as to the possibility of her 
mother's knowing that they had been so kind to her at the Alms-house, 
and piotuiing to herself the lovely face of her new friend who seemed 

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47© The Monk's Prophecy* 

80 strong and oleyer, and the gentle little lady ^ho spoke to her so 
tenderly. " Oh, I hope they will like me,'*, she murmured; •• I wisk 
Sunday were nearer." She fell asleep, and after about an hour she 
was awakened by unusually loud voices down stairs. There were the 
sounds of weeping and passionate upbraiding. She started up and 
went to the door. The furious voice of Mr. Cosgrave was distinguish- 
able, as he said : *' You have them as you reared them, letting 
them ramble about instead of stopping at home doing something of 
use." 

" They can't stop in the house when you are in it," said his wife^ 
weeping; "they run into the streets from your abuse and violence. 
Tou only stop at home yourself to treat us like dogs." 

** Oh, you old hag, I wish I broke my neck the day I joined you.'* 

"I wish you did," she sobbed, "but there was little fear of the 
like of you. You should live to break my heart, and the hearts of 
your children. If all the tears you made us shed were together, 
you could swim in them. 

" Blast you ! he cried, viciously, " am I to be master in my own 
house? I wish I was a thousand miles away from the whole cursed 
crew." 

"And why don't you go?" she cried; " who is keeping you ? What 
do you give us but curses and abuse ? We'll live wiUiout you." 

" Ah ! you're a nice doe," he said, " you're a pattern wife ; 'twould 
be better for a man to be hanged than among such a clutch." 

" I never answer you till you drive me mad," she replied ; " every- 
one runs when they hear your step. Why don't you give us peace ? 
I don't know what it is to have a day's comfort." 

" Comfort !" said the boy's voice, " is there such a thing as com- 
fort?" 

" Give me the money I asked for, or I'll smash your neck," shouted 
Mr. Cosgrave. 

" I haven't it," she answered ; " I paid the bread man with it, and 
if I bad it I wouldn't give it to you to spend in the public-house." 

There was the sound of a scuffle. 

" 'TIb no use," said the boy, " you mustn't strike my mother and 
I by. Leave off, father; I'm stronger than you." 

There was a volley of blasphemous oaths ; in another moment Mr. 
Oosgrave was heard trampling heavily upstairs ; he stumbled over a 
mat, kicked it with a muttered curse, went out of the hall-door, and 
banged it after him with such violence that ^the whole house was 
shaken. 

" Go after him, Tom, for Ood's sake," said Mrs. Cosgrave^ '' there's 
no knowing what he'll do. Try and coax him back." 

"Coax him!" said the boy. with a hard laugh, "coaxing and 
scolding isn't good even for children, you might as well tiy to draw 



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The Monks Prophecy. 47 1 

in the tide before ita time as to speak to a man like him. Let him 
alone/* 

*' I wouldn't be surpriaed if he played away with himaelf when he 
is in one of those tempers, and he full of whisky/' answered Mrs. 
Goegrave, with a weaiy sob. ''If he meets Julia now, the Lord pily 
us; and die oughtn't to be stopping out this way. Oo after him, Tom, 
for the lore of Ood." 

**Stop your ciying, mother, and I. will ; but there's little fear of 
him,*' and the boy ascended the stairs and followed his father. 

Sydney sat down trembling. She had often heard the sound of 
disputing voices in the lower regions before, but their meaning was 
never so fully explained. She remembered with a shudder that she 
now the only lodger in the house. A gentleman who occupied the 
floor above her had left that morning. However, she recollected with 
feelings of relief that Mr. Oosgrave was out for the present ; she sum- 
moned courage to ring the bell and ask for the tea-kettle. In a couple 
of hours the hall-door was opened again, and unsteady footsteps 
staggered along the passage. 

" Gome, my boy, keep your legs ; you'll never do it younger ; — a 
regular chip of the old block," said Mr. Cosgrave, with a drunken 
laugh. /' Make your head while your young ; that's the ticket. Does 
your mother know you're out ? Whoa up, Neddy." 

" What's this ?" said Mrs. Oosgrave, in a shrill voice, coming to the 
foot of the kitchen stairs. 

" Hold the light out, you useless old wretch," shouted Mr. Oosgrave. 
'' Do you want us to crack our necks down those infernal stairs ? drunk 
as a lord this son of yours : a chicken-hearted cub, not able for a 
second glass. All your coddling, keeping him too tight. Hold the 
light, I say.'* 

" Oh, my poor boy," the mother answered, in heart-struck tones. 
" Who gave you the drink ? — why did you take it f" 

" I gave him the drink, my old dame, to pay him for following 
me," said Mr. Cosgrave; '* did the thing decent, and made him stand 
a treat all round. I'll teach you to send dodgers after me, you jade. 
Clear out of the way." They went into the kitchen, the door was 
shut violently, but Sydney could hear the fire-irons and fur- 
niture banged about in a manner unpleasantly suggestive. After a 
while the uproar ceased, and Sydney's heart began to beat less rapidly. 
She was about to retire to bed when there was a low tap at the door, 
and Mrs. Cosgrave entered ; her face was veiy pale, and her eyes were 
swollen from weeping. 

'' I am sorry to disturb you. Miss," she said, '' but my husband is 
in bad humour, and you would do an act of charity ,if you called up 
Julia when she comes in; or I'll set one of the children on the stairs to 
teU her you want her ; she is so headstrong she wouldn't mind facing 
him^ and he*d kill her as soon as look at her now ; if he thought she 



472 Magnet and Diamond. 

was out. I said she was with you ; and she oughtn't to be out 00 late ; 
'tis nearly ten." Mrs. Cosgrave sighed heairily. 

While she was speaking rapid footsteps came to the door; they 
paused for a time; there was a laugh, then steps passed on, and the 
latch-key turned in the door. 

" Bring her here, Mrs. Cosgrave," said Sydney, and the woman 
crept softly down. In a few moments she returned with Julia. 

'< Qood-night, Miss Ormsby, and GK)d bless you,'' she whispered ; 
''I'll send up when he*s asleep." 

{To he eanttnued.) 

[The Serial Story <*DiiLi> Bbokb " will be oonduded in September.] 



MAGNET AND DIAMOND. 

BT JAMES OWBN o'OOm^OB. 



THE magnet still attracts the steel, 
Its subtle influence to deal ; 
The steel doth feel the magnet draw, 
Its atoms recognising law ; 
The magnet it can not repel ; 
The attraction is, and it is well : 
How can we break the magic bond ? 
Betwixt them place the— diamond ! 

n. 

The still small voice of Conscience stiU 
Would magnetise the human Will ; 
The Understanding yields assent ; 
The WiU is free—belligerent; 
The Conscience it can not repel — 
The attraction is, and it is well : 
God is the Magnet, strong and fond, 
And Mammon is the diamond. 



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( 473 ) 



PEA BAETOLOMMEO, THE GREAT DOMINICAN PAINTEE. 

BY BOaA MULHOLLAKD. 

Padbb Mabohisb, bimself a Dominican^ speaks thus of his convent : — 
'' San Marco has within its walls the Eenaissanoe, a compendium in 
two artistsy Fra Angelico the painter of the ideal. Era Bartolommeo of 
form. The first doses the antique Tuscan schooL He who has seen 
Fra Angelico has also seen Qiotto, Cimabue, 9^. The second represents 
the modem school. In him are also comprised Masacdo, Lorenzo*di 
Credit Leonardo, Buonarotti, and Andrea del Sarto. Fra Angelico 
sets himself to contemplate the fount and archetype of the beautiful, 
and, as much as possible, to mortal hands, reproduces and stamps it in 
those works which a sensual mind cannot understand, but which to the 
heavenly soul speaks an eloquent language, Fra Bartolommeo, with 
more analysis, works thoughtfully .... he ascends from the 
effect to the cause, and in created things contemplates a reflection of 
spiritual beauty." 

It is true the Dominican Order has been as great a patron of arts 
as the Franciscan of literature. It united with Nicole Pisano to*give 
form to national architecture* It had sculptors, miniaturists, and glass 
painters. As a building San Marcohas always been a shrineof art. Since 
the time that Micheloggi, with the assistance of the Medici, built'the 
convent for Saint Antonine, and Fra Angelico left the impress of his 
soul on the walls, a long line of artist monks has lived within its cloisters. 

Four years had passed since Fra Bartolommeo's entrance into reli- 
gion, and the monk had never touched a pencil. But his mission in art was 
not fulfilled, and events were working towards that end ; for the spirit of 
art once awakened could not die either in that convent or in that age. 

His friend, Mariotto, kept him au eaurant in all the gossip of^furt, 
and told him of the great cartoons of Leonardo and Michelangelo, 
which he, too, went to see. They might have inspired him afresh ; or, 
perhaps, in advising Albertinelli, he felt himself impelled to paint, or 
possibly the visits of Eaphael, in 1504, influenced him. 

However that may be, it is most interesting to the Catholic mind to 
dwell on the four years of absolute retirement which intervened 
between the two active periods of the great painter's career. The 
ardent youth who had lived and worked in, if not of, the world, and 
played his part with passion in terrible dramas of the time, was for 
ever gone. The monk, wrapped in prayer before the altar of that God 
whom only he would serve, knew that youth no longer, nor was he 
aware whether the hopes and inspirations of the youth were destined 
to find any fidfilment in the future of the man, which had been un- 
falteringly placed at the disposal of heaven. He awaited the bidding 
of his master, and, meantime, purified and strengthened the sotd 
within him by prayer. Digitized by GoOglc 



474 ^^^ Bartolammeo. 

In 1504, the will of GK>d was made known to him. Padre Marchese 
says that Santi Pagnini, the Oriental scholar and lover of art, came 
back in that year, as prior, to S. Marco, and used not only his en- 
treaties but his authority to induce Fra Bartolommeo to recommence 
painting. At all erents, when Bamardo del Bianco, who had built a 
beautiful chapel in the Badia from Boveszano's designs, wished for an 
altar-piece worthy of its beauty, which he felt no hand could execute 
so wdl as that of the Frate, he yielded to persuasion, and the Trntm 
of 8, Bernard wBkB begun. The contract is dated ISdi of Noyember, 
1504 ; and a part payment of sixty florins in gold was made 16th of 
June, 1507 ♦ 

This picture, now in the Belle Arti of Florence, is so much injured 
by re-painting that some parts seem even crude. The saint is on his 
knees writing, while the vision of the Virgin and Child stands poised 
in air before him ; she inspires his pen, and the infant Ohrist gives his 
blessing on the work. There is great spirituality and ecstasy in St 
Bernard's face, his white robe contrasts well with two saints behind 
him, which cany out Fra Bartolommeo's favourite triangular group- 
ing, and, with a rich harmony of colour, balance his white robe. 

The Virgin is drawn with great nobility and grace, her drapery 
admirably majestic, yet airy, and a sweet infantile playfulness renders 
the Child charming. The angels beneath the Virgin's feet are lovely, 
but the groups of seraphs behind are the least pleasing of alL They 
are of the earth, earthy, and seem reminiscences of the Florentine 
maidens the artist met in the streets. Possibly this is the part most 
injured by the restorer's (?) hand. The colouring of the two saints 
behind B. Bernard— one in a green robe, with bronze-gold shades, and 
the other blue and orange — ^is very suggestive of Andrea del Sarto, 
and seems to render probable Bossini's assertion that the Frate taught 
the first steps of this difficult career to that artist who alone was called 
8en»' errari.' "♦ 

Fra Bartolommeo now began the works of his life in earnest, and 
at this time was painted the *' Meeting of Ohrist with the Disciples at 
Emmaus" (1506), a beautiful fresco in a lunette over the door of the 
refectory at 8. Marco, in which is combined a richness of colouring 
rarely obtained in fresco, with a drawing which is almost perfect 
Fra Niccolo deUa Magna, who was prior in that year, and left, in 1507, 
to become Archbishop of Capua, sat for one of Uie saints. Oontempo- 
rary with this may be dated also the figure of the Virgin, painted for 
Agnolo Bono, now in the Corsini gallery in Home. Giovanni de Medici 
also gave him a commission. 

It is curious to hear of the bargaining that went on for a long time 
about the price of the picture of St Bernard. The money for his work 

• ** Padre Marcbese, Memorie," &e. Document iii., toL ii., p. 594. 
• Fra Bartolommeo. By Leader Soott, Author of " A Nook in the Appenninei.* 
London : 8amp.on, Low k Co. 1881. ^,g.^,^^, ,^ GoOglc 



Fra Bartolommeo.' 475 

of course belonged to tlie conyent, not to tlie Frate himself; but, being 
called upon to value his labour, he named the sum of 200 ducats. 
Bernardo, for whom the picture was painted, offered onlj eighty 
ducats, which were not considered sufficient bj the Frati. The Abbot 
of the Badia was called in as umpire; but being unable to move 
Bamardo, he declined to act any further in the matter. The affair 
was placed in the hands of a council of friends to no purpose. The 
question was laid before the Guild of Druggists {a/rU de^li »paiiali)f 
which, at that time, included doctors and painters ; but in the end the 
business was arranged by a relative of Bernardo, one Francesco 
Magalotti, who priced the painting at 100 ducats, and with this sum 
the monks had to be satisfied. 

A strong friendship existed between Baphael and Fra Bartolommeo, 
bat the date of its beginning seems uncertain. Baphael was in Flo- 
rence in 1504 ; but at this time the great Dominican painter was lead- 
ing a life of complete seclusion and prayer, and had no works of his own 
near him to excite Eaphaers notice and admiration. Padre Marchese 
and others assert that the intimacy between the two masters of painting 
began during Baphael's visit in 1506, when he might have seen the 
newly-fmished fresco of the "Disciples at Emmaus." Their inter- 
course was beneficial to both. Baphael studied anew Leonardo's prin- 
ciples of colour under Fra Bartolommeo *s interpretation of them, and 
the Frate improved his knowledge of perspective and harmony of 
compoflition. It is said that they worked together at some pictures, of 
which one is in France and another at Milan, but there is not sufficient 
evidence to prove this. 

It is also thought that Fra Bartolommeo helped in the composition 
of Raphael's famous '^ Madonna del Baldacchino," which is truly 
very much in his style. 

In the year 1508, the Frate first made acquaintance with the 
Venetian school, which had some degree of influence upon him. The 
I>oininicans in the different parts of Italy often exchanged visits ; and 
Fra Bartolommeo went to sojourn with his brethren in Venice. Here 
he met with an old acquaintance and namesake, Baccio di Monte Lupo, 
a Bculptor,. who had fought side by side with our own Baccio in the 
siege of St. Mark's church, and had fled from Florence upon the death 
of Savonarola. Baccio, the sculptor, was at the time of Fra Barto- 
lomxneo's visit to Venice at work there upon the tomb of Benedetto da 
Peaaro in the church of the Frate, and was deli^chted to show the 
beauties of the Queen of the Adriatic to an artistic mind. Tintoretto 
'was not yet bom, Titian was only just rising into fame, though his 
style had not yet become what it was after Oiorgione's influence ; but 
Pra Bartolommeo must have found much that was sympathetic in the 
exquisite works of Qiovanni Bellini and his school, and much to admire 
izL the glorious colouring of Giorgione. 

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476 • Fra Bartolammeo. 

An interesting mention of St. Catherine of Siena occurs here in the 
histoiy of Fra Bartolommeo. Having been commissioned by Father 
Dalzano, yicar of the monastery of St. Peter Martyr at Murano, to paint 
a picture of the value of seventy or a hundred ducats, and not having 
time to paint it during his stay in Venice, the Frate promised to go to 
work upon the picture inmiediately on his return to Florence. He was 
then paid in advance twenty-eight ducats in money and colours, and 
the rest of the hundred ducats was to be raised by the sale of some 
MS. letters from St. Catherine of Siena, which a friend of Father Dal- 
zano, near Florence, held in his possession. 

His visit to Venice gave Fra Bartolommeo a fresh impulse for 
painting, and he returned home to Florence full of the idea of diffus- 
ing as widely as possible the religious influence of art. He desired 
now to enlarge his atelier and school at San Marco. In the convent 
he had two or three assistants, the foremost being Fra Paolino of 
Pistojia, the others one^or two miniaturists who could soar no higher 
than mere missal-painting. Fra Paolino (bom 1490 J entered religion 
at a very early age, and was removed to Florence from Prato with 
Fra Bartolommeo. His father, a painter, Bernardino di Antonio, had 
taught him the first principles of art ; but all his skill was learned from 
the Frate, under whom he worked for years. 

However, the assistance and companionship in labour of this 
youthful convent pupil did not prevent Fra Bartolommeo from lon^ng 
for his old friend Mariotto, who had worked with him for so many 
years from childhood upward, and who oould follow out his designs in 
his own style so closely that an unpractised eye could not see the 
difference of hand. The convent was willing to give f uU power to the 
Frate, who was its pride and delight, to arrange his affairs as best 
might assist the great work he {had begun, and Mariotti Albertinelli, 
the worldling, was taken into partnership with his old 'chum* and 
fellow-student Fra Bartolommeo the Dominican monk. 

It was a curious partnership, but it worked right welL There was 
Albertinelli on the one side, and the convent and Fra Bartolommeo on 
the other. The partners provided money for all expenses, and the 
profits were to be divided between the convent and Mariotto ; for the 
vow of poverty, of course, prevented the Frate from touching any portion 
of what he earned. This state of things began in 1509, and ended in 
1512; and the inventory of the profits and the divisions made when 
the partnership was dissolved, fully set forth by Padre Marchese,* are 
very interesting. Separate monograms distinguished the pictures 
painted entirely by one or other of the two artists. To his monogram 
the Frate always added the touching petition, " OraU pro pictore,'^ 
while his friend merely Latinised his name. Works accomplished by 
both in partnership were signed by the united monogram. 

• " Padre Marchese, Memorie," &c., toI. ii. 

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Fra Bartolommeo. ^fj 

It is pleasant to dwell on the happiness of poof Mariotto during the 
thxee years which followed the invitation of his belored friend to liye 
and work by his side, even if within convent walls. Albertinelli had 
been almost driven mad by his grief for the loss of Baccio, and 
nnaocustomed to govern his passion, or to resign himself to the will of 
Grody knew not how to endure so great a sorrow. He fell into 
despair, vowed to give up painting ; declared he would become a 
monk only that he now hated monks a thousand times more now than 
he had hated them before. His first agony over, he turned sadly to the 
unfinished fresco of the Last Judgment, whichhis friend had bequeathed 
to him to complete. Better thoughts came to him, perhaps, as he 
laboured at this solemn task ; at all events he began to work regularly 
at his painting once more, and leaving Baccio's house at the old gate-* 
way, took a room in Ghialf onda, now Via Yal Fonda, a street leading 
towards the fortress built by the Ghrand Duke Oosimo, on the nort£ 
of the city; and here, in time, quite a school grew up under his 
tuition. His scholars were, Francia Bigio, then a boy ; Yisino, who 
afterwards went to Hungary; Innocenzio da Nicola, and Fiero, 
Bacdo's brother. Guiliano Bugiardini was his head assistant rather 
than his pupil. 

Some noble paintings made their way into the world out of 
Mariotti's bottega in Yal Fonda. Though they are quite his own, the 
influence of Fra Bartolommeo can be traced in almost all. The finest 
is the Salutation, dated 1508, ordered for the Church of San Martino, 
now the gem of the hall of the Old Masters in the XTffiri Gallery. 

This is a work considered fine enough to mark him for all time as a 
great master. It has been thus described : " So simple is the subject, 
and so grand the proportions, and in the figures there is such 
majesty of maternity and dignity of womanhood. A decorated 
portico, with the heavens behind it, forms the background to the two 
noble women, in one of whom is expressed the gracious sympathy of 
an elder matron, with the awful mysterious joy of the younger. The 
colouring, perfectly harmonised, is the most masterly blending of a 
subdued tone, with soft, yet brilliant richness, and shows a deep study 
of the method of Leonardo." 

During the nine years that intervened between Baccio's entering 
religion and the formation of the second partnership between hirn and 
Mariotto, doubtless the friends exchanged frequent visits. Fra 
Bartolommeo would spend an hour occasionally in the bottega of the 
Yal Fonda, and Albertinelli would, despite his hatred of monks, 
rush oft at every spare moment to refresh his feverish spirit in the 
calm atmosphere of the Frate's studio in the quiet doister. All this 
time the monk continued to love the rash, wayward, but warmhearted 
companion of his early days, and, in 1504-5, Fra Bartolommeo gave a 
striking proof of his faith and trust in the friendship of M|UK)ttio. 
Vol. X., No. 109. 28 d by GoOglc 



478 Fra Bartolomnuo. 

The Dominicaa, Santi Pagnini, who had acted as goardian to Piezo, 
Baocio's only remaining brother, having been removed as prior to 
Siena, Fra Bartolonmieo appointed Albertinelli guardian and instructor 
to the youth, signing a contract^ giving to Mariotto the use and 
management of all estates and possessions of Piero, including several 
poderi in the country, as well as the house at St. Fiero GkittolinL It 
appears that this Piero was a troublesome youth, and a great care to 
his illustrious brother : and no better proof could have been given of 
the Frate's confidence in Albertinelli than this trust of guardianship 
which he placed in his hands. 

However, Mariotto was undoubtedly a wanderer, and full of caprice. 
After sending forth many great pictures from the Yal Fonda we hear 
of him, about 1506>8, abandoning art, and taking to other occupations. 
He married about this time, and his wife's father kept an inn at St. 
Gallo. Some say that Mariotto was induced to try the management of 
the inn for a time: but if so, his new way of life did not satisfy him 
long, for in 1509 he was at work again with the brush, and, in i510» 
he began one of his masterpieces, the Annuneiaium, for the compai^ 
of St. Zenobio, now in the BeUe Arti. It was on the completion of 
this picture that Fra Bartolommeo returned from Venice, and the 
convent partemership commenced. 

Then followed the three happy years for Albertinelli, the happiest 
of his restless and not very happy life. Working by Ihe side of his 
beloved friend, breathing the calm atmosphere of his presenoe, 
Mariotto found himself in heaven. The days passed quicldy in the 
busy atelier where the two men, so different in their natures and in 
their ways of life from the very beginning, who had done their tasks 
together as children, learned tiieir art in the same school, loved and 
trusted each other amidst a thousand differences of temperament 
and circumstances, now laboured side by side in the prime of their 
manhood. 

Theyhad many patrons, and orders flowedin upon theuL Bugiardini 
was still Mariotto's head assistant, and Fra Paolino, and one or two 
other monks, worked under Fra Bartolommeo. Both had pupils, 
among whom were Oabriele Kustid and Benedetto Cianf aninL 

The studio of St. Marco was in the part of the convent between the 
cloister and the Via del Maglio. It is easy to picture the interior. 
The two great masters, such a contrast in face, in dress, in manner ; 
the busy pupils, the younger ones whispering and grinding the colours, 
as Mariotto and Baccio had once done together, under the shadow of 
the ungenial presence of Piero di Cosimo. There stands the ** lay 
figure,*' first invented by Fra Bartolommeo, and on which he draped 
the garments that take such majestic folds in his works. Casts and 
models are to be seen in different parts of the room; g^rand cartoons in 
charcoal hang on the walls, like those we see to this day in the TTffiii 
and Belle Arti. Digitized by GoOgk 



Fra BartolomnuQ. 4^9 

So many of these maaterlj sketches are the Frate^s, and so few 
Mariotto'Sy that it is to be supposed the former was generally the 
designer. His design may be called truly perfect. Erery figure 
hamKmised in its lines with the geometric rhythm in the artist* s mind, 
l^ot a cartoon was sketched in which the lights and shadows were not 
as finely gradated and finished as in a painting, although they were 
merely drawn with charcoal. 

We are told that the same kind of talk went on in the conyent bottega 
as that which is to be heard in modem studios. When the frame- 
maker came, Fra Bartolommeo would be yexed to see how much of his 
wozk was hidden beneath the massive cornice, and would yow to dis« 
pense with frames altogether. This idea he carried out in his St. 
Sebastian and St. Mark, by painting an architectural niche round he 
subjeot, like a carving in relief. 

The exquisite pictures painted in the studio of St Marco, and sent 
forth to the world, to be placed in noble cathedrals, and remain there 
for the wonder and delight of future ages, would f onn a long list, and 
descriptions of individual paintings might seem tedious to our readers. 
For three years the friends worked together in perfect harmony, and 
then, to Mariotto's heavy sorrow, the convent partnership was dissolved. 
In 1512, Santi Pagnini came back from Siena as prior of St. Marco, 
and it is said that he had no love for Albertinelli. It has also been 
suggested that jealous care for the Frate's reputation and great personal 
love for him may have led the new prior to look on the partnership as 
undesirable. However that may be, we cannot but feel sorry for 
Mariotto's disappointment. The stock, of which a full list is given by 
Padre Marcheee, was divided, each artist taking the pictures in which 
he had had most to do. The properties, amongst which were the lay 
figures, easels, casts, sketches, blocks of porphyry to grind colours on, 
-^c., were to be left for Fra Bartolommeo's use till his death, when 
they were to be divided between his heirs and Albertinelli. 

Poor Mariotto returned sadly to paint in his solitary studio. Who 
oould know that he had only three remaining years of life before himP 
While he continued his work alone, Fra Bartolonmieo was sent to 
Bome, where he received immediately a commission to paint large 
figures of St. Peter and St Paul for the church of St. Silvestro, 
These he began, but did not finish; for the air of ;Home did not agree 
with him, and he fell into bad health. It has been said that Baphael 
finished these works, though the statement is doubted by good au- 
thority. 

Fra Bartolommeo brought home the malaria with him to Florence^ 
and never quite got rid of it during the remainder of his life.. Yet, 
lie worked on. Even in the hospice, where he was sent for the good 
of his health (Sta Maria Maddalena, in Pian di Magnone), he turned 
his attention at once to the decoration of the walls that sheltered him, 

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4^o Fra Bartolomnuo. 

and many beautifiil freeooes remain there to tell of his sojourn in the 
place. On the wall of the infirmary he left behind him alorely 
Madonna to gladden the eyes and hearts of future inyalids; whidiy 
.however, is no longer to be found where he placed it, but has 
been taken away, and placed in the student's chapel of San Marco, 
Florence. 

His health restored for a time, he returned to Florence, and went 
to work again with great energy, producing his San Sebastian, a pic- 
ture described as yery splendid, but which seems to have been lost 
sight of in latter years ; unless it be in the possession of Monsieur 
Alafire of Toulouse, who owns a picture which corresponds with the 
description given of it by Yasari. 

In 1515, we find Fra Bartolommeo at Lucca, with his old friend, 
Santi Pagnini, the Orential scholar, who was now prior at that place, 
painting for the Church of San Bomano there, his great work, the 
JfiulMMia ielXa IRs^ricordia, which is thus described : — 

^The composition is full and harmonious. A populace of all ages 
and conditions, grouped around the throne of the Madonna, beg her 
prayers ; she, standing up, seems to gather all their supplications in 
her hands, and offer them to heaven, from which, as a vision, 
Christ appears from a mass of clouds in act of benediction. Amongst 
the douds of supplicants are some exquisite groups. Sublime inspira- 
tion and powerful expression are shown in the whole work." 

Betuming from Lucca, leaving this masterpiece behind him, the 
great Frate stopped at Pistoja on his way, to paint there a fresco of a 
Madonna on a wall of the Convent of San Domenico. Li October, 1515, 
we find him again at the hospice at Plan de Magnone, suffering, no 
doubt, from a return of fever. An exquisite Annunciation in fresco 
was the gift here left behind him in exchange for renewed health. 
Betuming to Florence later in the autumn, he stopped on his way to 
visit the home of his childhood, and see his relations near Frato. His 
delighted friends knew not what to do to express their joy at having 
him among them; him of whom they were so justly proud. "With the 
little children of the family round his knees, he was obliged to tell 
them that he could not come very soon again because the King of 
France had sent for him. Yet, he did not go to the King of France ; 
but to the death-bed of poor Mariotto, who needed him more. 

Albertinelli had been to Bome, and had painted some pictures 
there, and probably would have lived to paint many more only for an 
indiscretion of his own. At Yiterbo, he over-exerted himself at some 
gay festival in which he took a part, and fell ill in consequence of his 
folly. He had himself taken on a litter to Florence, and his dear and 
failhful friend was soon at his side. We can itaicy how the poor 
worldling, whose heart was yet so warm and true, turned in subh an 
hour to such a friend. Fra Bartolommeo smoothed his pillow and 

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Borf(med Plumes. 48 1 

flooihed his pain, and brought comfort and peace to liis anxious soul ; 
trying to make up by his own ardent prayer for the shortcomings of 
a dying brother. ADtriotto died on the 5th of Novembery 1515, and 
his friend followed him to his grave in St. Piero Haggiore. 

After all this, Fra Bartolommeo had yet to paint his greatest 
masterpieces. One of these is ChrUt at the Centre ofBdigionf in the 
Pitti Palace, a wonder of composition and colouring. Another is the 
enthronement of the Virgin, which an attack of illness obliged him to 
leave unfinished, and which is yet called one of his richest compositions. 
In this picture, in a group of three monks, is to be found a portrait of 
Pra Bartolommeo himself, a noble face, full of reverence, feeling, 
and intellectual power* After painting vigorously for some time he 
was forced to retreat once more, and for the last time, to the hospice 
on the hills, where the Vmon of the Saviour to Mary Magdaien remains 
above the door of the chapel, his last thank-offering for a renewal of life 
and the power to work. This time the renewal was granted for but a 
short period ; for, returning to Florence in the autumn of the same year, 
be caught cold, and died, after some days of exceeding suffering. His 
death occurred on the 8th of October, 1517, his age being 42. 

The loss of one so dearly loved among them, and of whom they 
were so justly proud, was a heavy sorrow to the monks of his Order. 
He was buried with great honour in San Marco, and his memory lives 
for ever, shedding glory on their name. 



BOEBOWED PLUMES. 

n. 

OiTLT once before (vol. ix. p. 555) have we been able to carry out our 
wish of occasionaUy making our own of poems which strike us as of 
special worth, and which are unlikely otherwise to come under the 
notice of those readers for whose pleasure and profit we are bound to 
cater as diligently as may be. At present the reasons will be obvious 
why we insist on finding room for the two '^ borrowed plumes " that 
deck this paper, although Maga is suffering just now (to mix oar 
metaphors) from a severe congestion of both verse and prose. Some 
frill think, indeed, that our pages, which are pledged to eschew all 
reference to the politics of the day, ought not to be darkened by any 
clouds that may be passing over the land. We sympathise with this 
feeling so far that we will not trust ourselves to any expression of our 

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482 Borrowed Plumes. 

horror at a crime which, rightly or wrongly — whether perpretrated by 
some of her degenerate sons or by aliens — ^has made Ireland the theme 
of many a dismal paragraph in those newspapers, which rule the ideas 
of the world, and of which so few are controlled by friends of Ireland. 
But as a witness to the real feeling of Ireland and her peasantry, we 
think that even the most prejudiced politician would admit the 
Natum newspaper. On April 8th, 1882, and therefore, a month befoi^e 
that dreadful Saturday evening. May the 6th, the thought of which 
made, one write to me lately, " our beautiful Park will never be the 
same again,"— in the Nation of the date just mentioned, appeared the 
following lines, which Mr. T. D. Sullivan, M.P., might have cited 
in the House of Commons as proof that he at least had not been 
slack in denouncing outrages. The initials, A, H. R., appended ta 
'< Ireland's Appeal," are new to us. 

What h»Te I done to thee, m j people ? Wearing 

Bent raiment of my shame, I made no cry — 
Wounded and worn, sharp chains of bondage bearing, 

Gladlj I went, though it were forth to die. 

Glad for the stainless lore je bore your mother, 

Glad for the steadfast faith of former years. 
For the strong truth of brother unto brother, 

For the white innocence of woman's tears* 

For the strong hands that sowed for far-off reapmg, 

For dying lips that hailed the distant day. 
For eyes that watched, while all the land was sleeping, 

For prophet souls who bade prepare the way. 

Did ye see nought, O children ! sare the token 

Of bleeding wounds, of bondage and disgrace ? 
Could ye not see, beneath her banner broken, 

A simrise fjiorj on your mother face ? 

What hare I done, my people ? Bound and stricken, 

Must I a deeper agony behold 
Than they that watched the famine children sicken, 

Than they who saw their country bought and sold ? 

With hands blood-stained, O sons! would ye defile her 
ORie whiteness of whose brow no gyres could etain? 

The kisses of your drunken lips are Tiler 
Than all the curses of her thraldom's chain. 

Were not my sad lips smiling when they bound me ? 

Yes, my people ! for your lore was sure. 
What should aTail their mockery who discrowned me f 

Their hands were red, but yours, beloyed, were pure. 

What hare I d<me ? My children, ye hare made me 

A path to Freedom that I may not tr<«d. 
What haye I done ? Wherefore haye ye betrayed me f 

Why haye ye stained my royal raiment red? 

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Borrowed Plumes, 483 

Bed iM the throne jour bloodstained hands would fashion ; 

Bed IS the wreath wherewith ye erown my head ; 
Ye strike, O children I blind with pain and passion, 

And lo ! my honour lies among the dead. 

What haTe I done to you ? Oh, hear my pleading — 

Your mother's agony, sons ! behold — 
Helpless and bound, with open wounds and bleeding, 

Betrayed for yengeance now, as once for gold ! 

This was before the calamity which thrilled all true Irish hearts 
with horror^ and made them pray, " From ruthless miscreants like 
those, Gh)d save Ireland !" After the deed was done, this " Oreeting 
in Sorrow " was addressed by Miss Eosa MulhoUand to the Countess 
Spencer, on her landing in Ireland. It has .been copied from The 
World into many journals on both sides of the Atlantic. 

good and noble lady, who hast dared * 

To set thy foot upon our blood-stained sod. 

Our aching hearts commend thee to that God 
Who for the faraye and true hath erer cared ! 

lAng time ago we knew thee in our isle. 

We saw thy shining beauty and rejoiced ; 

For thou wert tender-eyed and gentle-yoiced, 
And won our lore by winning word and smile. 

In happier summers thou hast gladdened seen 
The splendour of our hawthorn-trees in bloom ; 
Thou oomest to us now in robes of gloom, 

And pale with grief is ** Spencer's Fairy Queen." 

Thou eomest to share our sorrow and our dread 

With us in darkened homes who sit and weep ; 

God bless thine eyery step, and may He keep 
All eyil from the ways thy feet must tread. 

We fain would bring our flowers to strew thy path. 
But they are scathed, and hang their heads for shame; 
The rose is wan, the lily red as flame, 

And no more joy our field or garden hath. 

Oar homesteads are o'ertumed by storm and flood, 

Our hearths are cold, our children lying low ; 

The yery grass is stain6d with our woe; 
Oehone, oehone ! the shamrock's drowned in blood. 

Yei com*st thou, gentle queen, to rule the storm. 

To bide with us and trust our grateful loye; 

Heayen giye us life, that we may liye to prore 
Our souls are true, our Irish hearts are warm. 



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484 Borrowed Plumes, 

Lay not to ub the nn that sUts the just : 

Caat on the foreign demon his black gnilt ; 

Brand, with the blood his alien knife hath spilt» 
The coward murderer of a nation's tmst. 

He is not ours, we will not take his crimes-^ 

The hideous blade to Irish hands unknown 

Hath marked him alien, and we will not own 
The wretch whose baseness grew in other dimes. 

Storm-tossed are we, and caught in deadly throes. 

Yet nerer has our vilest smote to death 

The stranger trusting to his friendly faith — 
So let this fiend be numbered with our foes ! 

Bid him thou loy'st be welcome to our shore, 

And go his gallant way for God and Bight ; 

Weed out the wicked, cut with sword of light 
Time-hardened knots that bind us eTermore. 

Though heayy be his task, in this sad land. 

Oh I be thou near, the innocent to sare ; 

Think on the sufferings of the peasant slare, 
And b^ sweet mercy in thy small right hand. 

YeB| eyen in the first paroxysm of anger against tlie crime irhich 
"gives strength to the enemy.' ^ of justice and of eyeiy social virtue, 
it is well to remember that peasants, too, can sufPer, and that other 
homes may be in mourning besides Chatsworth. Would that high and 
low would feel and act in the spirit of the noble words written in her 
fresh grief by the widow of Lord Frederick Oavendish I 

But is it not better to try and forget this hideous nightmare, at 
once and for ever ? No, it is wise to be prepared for the worst pos- 
sibilities of human nature, and to be reminded that human laws are 
impotent without the divine sanction ; that progress and dvilisation, 
education and political reform, the '' dismal science '* and evexy other 
science, can avail littie to secure the real welfare of mankind, even on 
earth, without practical faith in Him who gave the ten conmiandments 
from Mount Sinai, in Him who spoke the seven words on Mount 
Oalvary. One of the ten is Thou $hM not kill, and one of the seven is 
FathiTf forgive them / 



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( 485 ) 

nasH WOOL and woollens. 

BY A DI80UBBIVB CWNTRIBUTOB. 
IV. 

If, in the interval between the Bestoration and the Bevolution, the 
oonyenion of Ireland into a vast sheep-walk was condemned as dis- 
couraging agriculture and forcing human beings to give place to wool- 
producing flocks, with much more reason was the aggravation of that 
system during the greater part of the eighteenth century regarded as 
a grievous injury to the country at hirge. Unquestionably, the 
peasantry suffered in the earlier period ; but, then, there was some 
compensation to the general community in the lucrative emplojrment 
of a large body of artizans engaged in working up the wool into cloths 
and stuffs for foreign markets. In the later and longer period, 
though camblets and other woollen fabrics were clandestinely carried 
to Spain and Portugal, and serges were smuggled into Scotland, and 
the people for the most part ** sheared their own wool and wore it," 
nevertheless no manufacture was carried on at all commensurate with 
the enormous production of raw material. In point of fact there was 
no adequate industrial compensation for the neglect of husbandry 
and the low status of the agricultural classes. 

Up to the middle of the eighteenth century the " pernicious sheep- 
walks" formed the main feature, after the bogs, of the Irish landscape* 
The counties of Tipperary, Limerick, and Oarlow were mainly given 
up to wool growing. The baronies of Ck)rra and Terrera in Sligo, and 
a great part of Koscommon, particularly that part between Athlone 
and Boyle (30 miles long and 10 miles broad), were continued sheep- 
walks. There were flock masters in Connaught who had 20,000 sheep 
on their farms. Patches of corn and potatoes appeared like a trimming 
on the skirts cf the pastoral plains, and amidst these patches grovelled 
the wretchedly-housed peasants. Arthur Young, who notes these par* 
ticulars, observes that at the period of his tour (1776-78), the popu- 
lation had greatly increased, and was sensibly encroaching on the 
grazing lands. Still, the sheep farms were seldom under 400 or 500 
acres, and rose to 3,000 : about 6,000 or 7,000 being then the greatest 
£ock kept by one owner. 

Among the four provinces, Connaught kept the pre-eminence in 
wool growing. The greatest quantity was produced in that western 
region, the quality of the fleece being also superlatively good. A wool 
fair was annually held at Ballinasloe, in the month of July, and lasted 
for several weeks. On these occasions sales to the amount of £200,000 



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486 Irish Wool and Woollens. 

were frequently effected * It does not appear that time was reckoned 
as a very valuable commodity by the Connaught flock masters and 
their customers, for at this fair they were wont to spend a vast amount 
of it in bargaining. A later writer than Young sajrs that an improved 
method of transacting business had recently been adopted by the Cork 
and Limerick buyers, who went to the growers' Jiouses, made such bar- 
gains as they could, and paid in bills at various dates. Still the July 
fair held its ground, and was conducted in accordance with traditional 
modes. ** It is," continues the author referred to, ''perfectly ridiculous 
to see sensible men walking about the streets of Ballinasloe, the buyers 
on one side and the sellers on the other, for often six weeks and more. 
This has been carried so far sometimes that the buyers have made 
parties to take a tour to Killamey or elsewhere for a fortnight or 
more, thinking to tire the sellers into a bargain."f 

Most of the Connaught wool was conveyed to Munster. Five 
hundred cars laden with wool might be seen at a time on the road to 
Cork city, and in the oounty of Cork half the wool of Ireland was 
combed. Glothiers established at Oharleville, Donnerail, Mitchelstown, 
Kanturk, Newmarket, and other places bought up wool, got it combed 
in their own houses, gave it out to be spun by the peasantry, and then 
sold it to the weavers, or disposed of it to the French agents. All over 
the South weavers were at work, some living in cabins about the 
country^ and others inhabiting cottages with small gardens in the 
towns. 

Everywhere throughout Ireland, except, perhaps, in some parts of 
Ulster^ Uie people prepared the raw material and made their own 
clothing. In eveiy cottage there was a spinning-wheel, and at the 
door in fine weather, sat mother or daughter spinning and singing the 
while — ^for music, which in those days was generally an enlivener of 
most domestic and out-of-door avocations, was invariably an accom- 
paniment to wool spinning. Dr. Petrie and other collectors of our 
national melodies, have preserved many of these spinning tunes. It 
was an understood thing that while the men supported the family by 
their labour in the fields, the women, who in those days never eng^iged 
in agricultural work, paid the rent by the profits of the distaff. 
Wakefield remarks that the people dic^lay great ingenuity in the 
manufacture of their doth and stuffs. " Instead of using oil in the 
weaving, as is the case in all woollen manufactures, they extract in the 
summer time the juice of the fern root, which they find to answer the 
purpose ; and for dyeing they employ the indigenous vegetable pro- 
ductions of the country, such as twigs of the alder, walnut and oak 
leaves, elder berries, ftc."t By all accounts, an excessive quantity of 

♦ " Toar in Irdand," toI. u. 

t Duttcm: <• Surrey of Clare ** (1808). 

X " Ireland, SUtistical and PoUacal," toI. i (1812). 

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Irish Wool and Woollens. 487 

wool, far more than skilfal artizans would approye, was used in the 
domestic manufacture of friezes, linseys, stockings, and petticoat stuffs. 
'^ The amount of the consumption of woollens in Ireland," says Lord 
Shield, " we cannot know, but it is very great, and, perhaps, no 
country whatever, in proportion to its nimiber of inhabitants, con* 
sumes so much. The lower orders are oovered with the clumsiest 
woollen drapery, and although the material may not be fine, there i» 
abundance of it. Besides coat and waistcoat, the lower classes wear a 
great coat both summer and winter, if it can possibly be got. Not only 
their clothing but their stockings seem to contain a double quantity of 
wool." The women, also, he observes, wear the clumsiest woollens ; 
their petticoats and their cloak, when they have one, containing much 
wool. Whatever doth and stuff remained after the farmer's household 
was supplied found a sale at the different fairs. At Eathdrum, in tho 
county of Wicklow, a flannel fair was held on the first Monday of every 
month, and the frieze fair of Kilkenny was celebrated. 

Manufactories of superior cloths existed in the cities and towns ; 
for although the production of first-class broadcloth for exportation 
was checked by the prohibitory statutes, it received encouragement in 
another direction. " When the Irish found themselves prohibited 
by English laws from the exportation of all woollen manufactures^ 
they thought the grievance insupportable, and to alleviate it applied 
all their wit and industry to two purposes : first, to export as much 
unmanufactured wool to France as possible; and, secondly, to make fine^ 
cloths for their own consimiption. These were deep wounds to the 
English woollen trade; the one giving our inveterate enemies a 
rivalship in that business, and the other taking from the English a 
great part of the Irish trade for fine doths which they enjoyed bd^ore.*'^ 

Thus stimulated to exertion, the Irish clothiers succeeded in making 
a serviceable and suffidently fine quality of doth for the use of tho 
easier classes. The Spanish wool required for mixing with the Irish 
was procured, strangdy enough, through London ; as indeed was also^ 
at least at one time, the supply of that staple which the French manu- 
facturers had need of. Swift evidently thought that in his day Irish 
gentlemen had no reason to consider tiiemsdves unsuitably garbed in 
native manufacture, and he did his best, as we know, to bring the 
fadiion of English broadcloth into discredit. Fashion, however,, 
reasserted its mischievous influence as time went on; and Dr. Campbell 
had reason to complain of the coxcombs of his day for their ignorant 
contempt of home-spun garments, and their affectation in pretending^ 
that woollens of the country were not good enough for their own wear. 
The Iridi, he says, are " very culpable in this affair, but the fault falla 
not upon the manufacturer, but the oonsimier. The woollen manu» 

* Earns: *• Life of William UI.*' 

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488 Irish Wool and Woollens. 

f acture, in despite of all efPorts to annihilate it, has flouxished in the 
city of Dublin, while it has languished eyerywhere else. But, as if the 
natives wished to conspire with other agents in banishing it hence also, 
they scorn to wear a home-spun coat. Even an attorney's derk must 
be dressed in English doth, and such is the contempt of Irish wooUena 
in Ireland, that it is common with the drapers to sell for English those 
which are really Irish."* 

Thus, the growing, preparing, and smuggling of wool filled up a 
considerable space in the life of ^e Irish people during the best part 
of the eighteenth century ; and the manufacture of cloths and stuffs, 
prindpally for home consumption, gave employment to a multitude of 
hands.,' And yet the woollen manufacture, though respectable, was im« 
measurably below the standard it would have reached if a free export 
had been allowed. "Home consumption," says the writer just 
quoted, " is not sufficient stimulus. The genius of trade sickens 
at the very thoughts of restriction, and it dies upon actual restraint.*' 
As for the dandestine trade, though a great number derived advantage 
from it, its drawbacks were neither few nor trifling, and its benefits 
were in some respects illusory. Precarious, hazardous, demoraliaing, 
it was as a system the very opposite of steady, open, legitimate trading. 
There wais all the difference in the world between the constitution 
of a great commerdal community and the enlistment of a host of 
trading adventurers. Sir James Oaldwell, an excellent authority, 
points out at some length the evils that wool smuggling brought on the 
country, and says in conclusion : — '* It deprives the poor of employment, 
discourages industry, promotes idleness and debauchery, disposes the 
common people to insult government, sows the seeds of rebellioa, and 
quenches humanity, by making violence, and in some cases murder, 
necessary to self •defence."f 

Although France was ready to pay a high price, and at times any 
price for Irish wool, the mode in which the payments were made 
increased the general disruption of sobriety and order. As already 
observed, the French Gbvernment objected to so great an amount of 
specie leaving the kingdom as had been transmitted to Ireland during 
the first years of the contraband traffic. Oash remittances were there- 
fore discontinued, and an exchange of commodities substituted. Ire- 
land was consequently deluged with wine and brandy, glutted with 
silks, laces, and such like commodities, and entangled more than ever 
in an iUidt traffic by the necessity of smuggling in French luxuries as 
well as running out native wool. A superabundance of good wine did 
not foster habits of temperance, and strangers remarked that the 
produce of excellent foreign vintages could be got in places where 
common Irish bread was not to be had. Luxurious and copious 

• •• A Philoaophieal Surrey of the South of Ireland " (1777). 

t " An Bnqairy oonoerniiig the Beetrietione laid on the Trade of Ireland '* (1766). 



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Irish Wool and Woollens. 489 

drinking on the part of the men was emulated by extravagant dressing 
on the part of the women. French finery suited ill with poverty- 
stricken surroundings, and only helped to render more remarkable the 
general disarray. Curious notices of Irish customs in the matter 
of drinking and dressing are to be found in the Querut Dr. 
Berkeley asks, *^ Whether any kingdom in Europe be so good a cus« 
tomer at Bourdeaux as Ireland P" '' How many gentlemen are there 
in England of a £1,000 jmt annum who neyer drink wine in their own 
houses? Whether the same maybe said of any in Ireland, who have even 
£100 p^r tffintmi ?" The lady's lace is a match for the squire's bottle^ 
and the Querist wants to know, "Whether it be not a notorious 
truth that our Irish ladies are on a foot, as to dress, with those of five 
times their fortune in England? Whether it be not even certain that 
the matrons of this forlorn countiy send out a greater proportion of its 
wealth, for fine apparel, than any other females on the whole surface 
of this terraqueous globe P "* 

A considerable quantity of French silk was used, in the early part 
of the last century, at funerals in Ireland. The scarfs worn by the 
mourners were made of lustring (commonly pronounced lutestring), and 
it was computed that between £11,000 and £12,000 were annually 
expended in the purchase of this smuggled article. Howeyer, after 
some time, the Cambric Company of Belfast proposed in the interest 
of the Irish manufacturers that linen should be used instead of silk at 
funerals. This mode having been adopted at the funeral of " a late 
great man of the first distinction," a statistician of the day remarked 
that '' it was well judged to bury him in character as a friend to his 
country and a benefactor to multitudes."! Another authority of the 
same date remarks that, whereas silk scarfs were of little utility except 
for the one occasion, linen scarfs might be applied to many other uses. 
They could be made of all prices, from one shilling to eight shillings 
a yard, answerable to the quality or fortune of the deceased. Eventu- 
ally the Ulster manufacture gained the day, and it became the fashion 
to honour the dead and serve honest trade at the same time by the 
display of a profusion of white linen at Irish funerals. 

I dare say it would be interesting while following the ramifications 
of illicit trading in Ireland to note instances of complicity in the traffic 
on the part of the gentry whose property touched on the sea-board. 
Those who are curious in the matter will find one notable instance of 
the association of a contrabandist's pursuits with the avocations of a 
landed proprietor in the early pages of MIbs Cusack's "Life of the 
liberator." 

Clearly, it was Bishop Berkeley's opinion that the Irish people 

• The ** Querist " was first published in 1735. 

t Dobbe : ** An JCssaj on the Trade and Improyement of Ireland " (1729). 



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490 Irish Wool and Woollens. 

would have shown more wifldom if they had aooommodated ihemBdyes 
to ciieamstaiioes, relinqaished the desire of a free trade in wool and 
woollens, and quietlj directed their oommeroial enthusiasm into other 
channels. He thought that hankering after a foreign trade, 
and grieving oyer its loss, enfeebled the national mind ; and he en- 
quires '^ Whether it would not be more prudent to strike out and 
exert ourselves in permitted branches of trade than to fold our hands 
and repine that we are not allowed the woollen P" and ^' Whether if 
there was a wall of brass a thousand cubits high round this kingdom, 
our natives might not, nevertheless, live deanlj and oomf ortablj, till 
the land, and reap the fruits of it P" But it is also plainly indicated 
in the QuerUi that the treatment which the wool had received de« 
stroyed fdl feeling of security in other trades ; that people oould not 
get rid of the idea that industries of other kinds, even though they 
«hould be '' with great pains and expense thoroughly introduced and 
settled in the land," might be at any moment similarly uprooted ; 
and that, therefore *' they stuck to their wooL" 

Moreover, nearly every other Irish industry had its grievance as wdl 
as the woollen trade. The Ulster linen manufacture received many a 
stealthy thrust and many an open blow from English jealousy, and 
was subject to disastrous fluctuations which kept the passenger trafiBc 
between the north of Ireland and America busy for scores ol yean 
deporting weavers out of work. In 1772 such was the state of zStam 
m Ulster that, as reported to the Irish House of Commons, the best 
manufacturers and weavers, with their families, had gone to seek 
bread in America, and thousands were preparing to follow. The Irish 
glass manufacture was most injuriously treated. Disabling duties 
were imposed on the Irish hempen m anu f acture, which at one time 
had supplied the whole British navy with sail-doih. Irish fishermen 
were not allowed to appear off Newfoundland, and petitions were 
presented to Parliament by English fishermen, praying that the Irish 
might be prevented from catching herrings on the coast of Waterford 
and Wexford. 

In fact the only extensive, and, occasionally at least, unfettered 
trade that Ireland enjoyed in those days was the export of salted pro- 
visions, which began immediately after the prohibition of the cattle 
trade with England. The French took immense quantities, and it was 
believed that without the Irish supplies they could hardly have 
victualled their ships. For a number of years the French settlements 
in the West Indies were provided from the same quarter. According 
to a contemporary foreign authority a breast of Irish beef was the 
greatest regale in those islands.* Besides beef, the French took butter 
tallow, and raw hides in great quantities. Prior, in his <* Observations 
on the Trade of Ireland," gives an idea of the extent of the fcnreign 

* See the treatiMe of Dobbt and Sir J. Ctldweil slreadj qaoted. 

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Irtsh Wool and Woollens. 491 

exports. '' It appears/' he says, '* from the quantity of our commodi- 
ties exported to France, at a medium yearly [for seven years ending 
1726, taken from the custom house books, that the French take from 
us, one year with another, two parts in five of all our tallow, above 
one-third of all our butter, a fourth part of our raw hides, and above 
one-third part of all our beef, which 'last commodity may otherwise 
lie a drug upon our hands, since no other foreign nation has occasion 
for the same, either for their own consumption or for the use of their 
colonies." Later on, the British navy received supplies of Irish beef ; 
and in times nearer to our own, as, for instance, during the Peninsular 
war, the British army was, to a great extent, victualled from Ireland. 

y idssitudes, of course, tried this trade as well as others. Although 
it did not excite national jealousy in any marked degree, it was victi- 
mised on occasions in the interest of the English contractors. '' Of 
all the restrictions," says Arthur Young, '* which England has at 
different times most impoliticly laid upon the trade of Ireland, 
there is none more obnoxious than the embargoes on their provision 
trade. The prohibitions on the export of woollens, and various other 
articles, have this pretence at least in their favour, that they are 
advantageous to similar manufactures in England ; and Ireland has 
long been trained to the sacrifice of her national advantage as a de- 
pendent country ; but in respect to embargoes even this shallow pre- 
tence is wanting : a whole kingdom is sacrificed and plundered, not to 
enrich England, but three or four London contractors !" 

The operation of this system of embargoes may be inferred from 
the account given by MacPherson of one of these transactions, shortly 
told as follows. An embargo was laid, in 1776, on the exportation 
of salted provisions from Ireland, in the apprehension of the French 
furnishing themselves with a stock of Irish provisions for victualling 
their fleets in the impending war, and was still in force in 1779. The 
French suffered no inconvenience, nor did the West India islands, for 
the American market was open to them. But to the Irish it was a 
grievous and ruinous disappointment " Their discontent was almost 
<x>nverted into indignation by a belief, which prevailed very generaliy 
among them, that the measure did not originate from the professed 
motive, but from a design of giving enormous lucrative contracts to 
ministerial favourities.*' So great was the distress following this pro- 
hibition that it was feared the country would become depopulated im- 
less the commercial grievances of Ireland were speedily redressed. 
Multitudes went to America where their countrymen were fighting in 
the rebel ranks ; and the charity of the higher dasses in Dublin was 
^trained to the extremest limit by the necessity of feeding daily 20,000 
poor citizens ruined by the new prohibition.* 

Passing strange it is that the spirit of enterprise was not wholly 

♦ " Annals of Comraeroe," toI. iii. 

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492 Irish Wool and Woollens. 

crushed by the discouragements and injuries inflicted on the trade of 
Ireland during so long a period. Necessity stimulated energy ; and 
it must be remembered that in trade lay the one chance for the Catholic 
body to rise from the degraded position it was held in by the penal 
code. Lord Chesterfield, albeit disdaining to use the vulgar arts of 
persecution, was far from desiring to see the Irish papists acquire 
power of any kind. He had sagacity enough to perceive that a serious 
pursuit of mercantile avocations would sooner or later enable them to 
obtain position, wealth, influence. His policy, therefore, would have 
been to repeal the laws that forbade Catholics to purchase estates, lure 
them thus from commercial enterprises, and then rely on the Gavel 
Act for breaking up, by subdivision, the newly acquired properties. 
Fortunately, Chesterfield's viceregal reign was too short to allow him 
an opportunity of carrying out his subtle schemes. The temptation to 
exchange the office of merchant for that of estated gentlemen was not 
just then set as a snare for ambitious Catholics. Traders of that reli- 
gion worked on in the industrial g^ove and amassed in many cases 
respectable fortunes. Their foreign relations afforded them opportu- 
nities for educating their children. It was the custom to send out 
Catholic youths as %o\ duani apprentices, on board of trading vessels ; 
and then, when they had got some education in the colleges of France 
or Spain, to smuggle them back into Ireland with the brandy and 
Bordeaux. 

But, to return to our sheep once more. All through those years the 
Irish never reconciled themselves to the loss of the legitimate wool 
trade. In vain they were that told it was unbecoming and ungrateful 
on their part to refuse this little compensation — the wool monopoly — to 
England: that great nation which had been at such trouble and 
expense in quelling the frequent rebellions of the Irish.* In vain 
they were invited to acquiesce in the inevitable and give up the wool. 
They could not be made to recognise their obligations, and they would 
not accept the inevitable. For eighty years they kept on perfdstently 
not acquieteifujf, until in the end they paid off old scores in quite another 
fashion, and made the inevitable fly from before their face. 

Several of the authorities we have quoted set the trade question in 
a fair light from time to time, between 1728 and 1766. They showed 
that, in order to relieve the English woollen trade, the Irish manufac- 
turers should be allowed to join in competing for the foreign market : 
they pointed out how such branches as the Turkey business, for 

• « The monopoly of wool and wooUen yam has been the greateet oeeaaion of com- 
plaint in Ireland, of hardship laid upon it by Bngland'a engrossing so Taluable a 
branch of trade to itself. This the English claim as due to them upon account of the 
charges from time to time they haye been at in reducing the natires of Ireland, as 
also in restoring the British interest when routed or disturbed by the frequent rebel- 
lions of the Irish. '*—Z>oMf. 



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Irish Wool and Woollens, 493 

inBtance, might well be carried on in Ireland, while the English 
weavers were employed in producing finer fabrics ; and thej ventured 
to inquire how it was that England stiU continued to compliment the 
French with a trade which she denied to Ireland. Beiterated obser- 
vations of this kind produced some effect in the long run. Thinkers 
and legislators in this island began to understand that something must 
be done to relieve the country from the intolerable oppression that 
weighed it down; and a vigorous public opinion grew strong by 
degrees, and finally demanded a hearing. Ireland, dreaming that the 
wool might yet be free, was gradually preparing for a struggle ; while 
England stUl maintained an impassive front, determined not to read 
aright the American lesson. A oontest at dose quarters was now 
inevitable. It was not destined to be a long one. Let us note the 
points of advance and retreat, observing the order of events, and 
keeping dose to our best authorities. 

In 1770, as Mr. Lecky writes, the Viceroy, Lord Townshend, sug- 
gested the necessity of rdaxing the commercial restriction under which 
Ireland laboured ; and suggested that a coarse kind of wooUen cloth, 
which was made in Ireland, but not in Great Britain, might be sent 
without danger to the Spanish and Portuguese markets. His efforts, 
however, were completely futile. In 1776, a few slight commerdal con« 
cessions were granted by England. Newfoundland and other fisheries, 
from which Irish fishermen had been excluded, were thrown open to 
them ; and the Irish were permitted to furnish the clothing of their 
own troops when they were stationed out of Ireland.! In 1778, the 
Prime Minister, Lord North, proposed to relieve the oommeroial 
restraints of Ireland by allowing a free and general exportation of all 
kinds of goods, except the woollen manufacture, '' that article being 
reckoned too sacred to be yet meddled with." But so great was the 
commotion excited in the manufacturing towns of England that Lord 
North had to reconsider his proposal. 

'' A general alarm," says MacPherson, " spread through most of the 
trading and manufacturing parts of the kingdom." They considered 
the '' admittance of Irdand to any partidpation in trade as not 
only destructive, in the most ruinous degree, of their property, but as 
being equally subversive of their rights. They were as little disposed 
to consent, that the people of Ireland should cultivate their own manu- 
factures, and dispose of their native commodities at the proper foreign 
markets, as they were to admit them to any limited degree of commer- 
cial partidpation. In short, the alarm was universal, and took such 
absolute possesion of the pubHc attention, that, for a short time, the 
American war, and all its brooding events, appear to have been for- 
gotten." The table of the House of Commons, as we read in Plowden's 

* '* The Hutory of England in the Eighteenth Century,*' toI. ir. 
Vol. X. Ho. 109. 29 n r\r\n\o 

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494 Irish Wool and Woollens. 

'' Historical Beview/' was covered with '' petitions against any exten- 
sion of commercial advantages to Ireland, by whicli the trade of 
England should be in any way affected. Liverpool, Manchester, and 
Glasgow threatened to be no longer loyal if these biUs should pass.*' 
The popular passion triumphed for the moment. The British Parlia- 
ment yielded to the pressure from without, and only some slight modi- 
fications of the commercial code were effected. 

Ireland was now fast assuming a formidable attitude. Her Par- 
liament was determined to assert its rights ; and the Volunteers were 
demanding free trade with arms in their hands. 

In February, 1779, ''The Sheriffs of Dublin represented to the 
Lord Lieutenant that 19,000 persons connected with the weaving trade 
in that city, besides many other poor, were on the brink of starvation, 
and that nothing but an extension of trade and a free export of manu- 
factures could save them." Two months later a meeting was held in 
Dublin, at which all present pledged themselves '' not directly or indi- 
rectly to purchase any of the goods or manufactures of Great Britain, 
that could be manufactured at home. . . . Agreements to use only 
domestic manuf actiires, and to abstain from purchasing English goods 
till the commercial restrictions were removed, were now entered into 
by the grand juries of many counties, and by numerous county meet- 
ings, and were signed in most of the great towns." The Viceroy, Lord 
Buckinghamshire, having requested the leading Irishmen of the day to 
make him acquainted with their opinions concerning the state of the 
country. LordLifford, SirLudus O'Brien, Flood, Hussey Burgh, Forster, 
and Hely Hutchinson, stated their views in pamphlets and treatises — all 
agreeing that, unless the commercial restrictions were speedily removed, 
Ireland could no longer pay her way.* 

Hely Hutchinson's ''Commercial Restrictions" was by far the 
most remarkable contribution presented to the Oovemment on 
this occasion. It was a piece of sound and creditable work. Having 
done excellent service to Ireland in its day, it still possesses a vivid 
interest and high value for the student of histoxy. Already the work 
has been several times quoted or referred to in this paper, and it 
would natiirally caU for special notice just at this part of our stoiy, 
only that its rare pages have been reprinted, under singularly able 
editorship, and given to the public within the last few days. Henoe- 
forth it will be no longer out of the reach of general readers .f 

• « The Hittorj of England in the Bighteenth Century," toI It. 
t The full tiUe of the re-iasue readi thue : '< The Commerdid Beetndnti of IreUnd, 
eonaidered in a leriee of letters to a noble Lord, containing am hiftoriod aoeount of 
the aff&irs of that Kingdom, Dublin, 1779. By John Hely Hutchineon, ProToet of 
Trinity College, &a Be-edited, with a aketch of the Author*! life, Introdactton, 
l^otei, and Index, by W. G. CarroU, HJL, SS. Bride*! and Miohael to Pole*!. 
Dublin : M. H. aui ft Son (1882). 



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Irish Wool and Woollens. 495 

Wlieiher the eyes of Europe were on the Emerald Isle at this 
jimctare or whether they were not, certain it is that America was not 
heedless of what was going on in the old land, and equally certain 
that the consciousness of American sympathy inspirited the patriots 
to a high pitch of courage and resolution, Benjamin Franklin watched 
the progress of events with deep interest He had visited Ireland and 
formed friendships with her sons, and he was well informed of her wants 
and her wrongs. Writing to Sir Edward Newenham in this very year, 
1779, he says : '^I admire the spirit with which I see the Irish are at 
length determined to claim some share of that freedom of commerce, 
which is the right of all mankind, but which they have been so long 
deprived of by the abominable selfishness of their fellow-subjects. To 
enjoy all the advantages of the climate, soil, and situation in which 
God and nature have placed us, is as dear a right as that of breathing, 
and can never be justly taken from men but as a punishment for some 
atrocious crime."* 

Meanwhile, the Volunteers seconded their demand for free trade 
by giving the best practical encouragement to the industries of the 
nation. They clothed their regiments and troops in Irish manufacture^ 
and the brilliant uniform of the different corps at their reviews and 
military gatherings throughout the country showed what could be done 
by native artisans with materials of home growth. They encouraged 
by their approval and supported by their patronage every undertaking 
which had for its object the extension of trade. Associations for the 
use of Irish manufactures sprung up in every part of the country, to 
the serious alarm of the English clothiers, who left nothing undone to 
compel or induce the small traders throughout the provinces to take 
their goods at reduced prices and on long credit. '' The Volunteers 
and the leaders of the movement were equally active on their side. 
The press, the pulpit, and the ball-room were enlisted in the cause of 
native industry. The scientific institutions circulated, gratuitously, 
tracts on the improvement of manufacture, on the modes adopted in 
the continental manufacturing districts, and on the economy of produc- 
tion. Trade revived ; the manufacturers who had thronged the city 
of Dublin, the ghastly apparitions of decayed industiy , found employ- 
ment provided for them by the patriotism and spirit of the countiy ; 
the proscribed goods of England remained unsold, or only sold under 
false colours, by knavish and profligate retailers ; the countiy enjoyed 
some of the fruits of freedom before she obtained freedom itself."f 
The Volunteer guns were made to express the national sentiment and 
advocate the cause of Irish wool. Around the necks of the cannons 
were hung labels with such inscriptions as, Frt$ H'ode or TkUl Free 

• '< life of Benjamin Franklin " toI. ia. (1833). 

t MacNeTln : " The Hiitoiy of the Volunteen of 1782." ^ . 

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496 Irish Wool and Woollens. 

IMe or ip0eiy Bm>oWt%on ! Eren the dmma lent fheir aid in intensi* 
^ying patriotic ardour. With more point, perhaps, than poetry, words 
had been fitted to a stirring march-tone adopted by the regimental 
bands, and the moment the roll of the drums was heard the popular 
memory suggested the verses : — 

<' Was she nob a fool, 
When ahe took off our wool. 
To leave m bo much of the 

Leather, the leather ? % 
It ne'er entered her pate. 
That a Bheepekin well beat. 
Would draw a whole nation 

Together, together." 

In the month of October the Irish Parliament met and unanimously 
resolved to address the throne, and represent to His ICajeety that it 
was not by temporary expedients but by a free trade alone tibiat Ire- 
land could be saved from impending ruin. The Speaker, accompanied 
by the patriot leaders, carried the addressee of flie Lords and Com- 
mons to the Oastle, the streets being lined with the Dublin Volunteers 
drawn up in arms, under their commander, the Duke of Leinster, and 
thronged with a rejoicing multitude. This action was followed by a 
proposal to withhold the supplies, or to limit the duration of the 
money bill, until free trade was yielded by England. During the 
debate on this question, the Prime Sergeant, Hussey Biirgh, delivered 
flie famous speech, in which he declared that if Parliament were 
weak enough to grant supplies for two years it would thereby destroy 
the fair prospects of commercial hope, and lead the British minister to 
treat all applications for free trade with contempt. " The usurped 
authority of a foreign parliament," continued the orator, '' has kept 
up the most wicked laws that a jealous, monopolising, ungrateful 
spirit could devise to restrain the bounty of Providence, and enslave 
a nation, whose inhabitants are recorded to be a brave, loyal, and 
generous people ; by the English code of laws, to answer the most 
sordid views, they have been treated with a savage cruelty ; the words 
penalty, punishment, and Ireland are synonymous, they are marked 
in blood on the margin of their statutes ; and though time may have 
softened the calamities of the nation, the baneful and destructive 
influence of those laws have borne her down to a state of Egyptian 
bondage. The English have sowed their laws like serpents' teeth, 
and they have sprung up as armed men."* 

During the delivery of this speech, Hussey Biirgh, in reply to some 
one who had observed that Ireland was at peace, thundered forth 
these words : " Talk not to me of peace. Ireland is not at peace ; it 
is smothered war." Extraordinary excitement was produced both 

* <*HirtorjoftheVolanteert." 



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Irish Wool and Woollens. 497 

within the house of Parliament and outside its walls by the Prime 
Sergeant's courageous words.* He ceased to hold his office under tiie 
Crown ; but the money bill was passed for six months only. By this 
time the temper of Uie parent State had undergone some change. 
Mute alarm had taken the place of outrageous clamour. The British 
Parliament met in November, and the signal for a new departure was 
immediately giyen. ''Seyere censures were thrown out in both 
houses upon the ministry for endangering the loss of Ireland, as they 
had already accomplished that of America, by delaying to grant what 
it would be no longer in their power to withhold, whereby they were 
now reduced to a necessity of yielding, as a matter of right, much more 
than would have been thankfully receiyed as a favour, if granted with 
A good grace at a proper time. At last the minister was roused to 
take up the business in earnest, "f 

Let the sequel be told, even at the risk of some repetition of state- 
ments, in the words, first, of a distinguished writer and gifted Irishman 
<kf our own day ; and, secondly, of the greatest man that this countxy 
has ever produced. 

Mr. Ledcy, in the course of his ably condensed history of this 
momentous year, thus writes: — ''Lord North, as we hare seen, had 
been already disposed to grant a very liberal measure of commercial 
relief to Ireland, though he proposed to except the capital article of 
the wcfol trade; but he had been intimidated by the clamour of the 
manufacturers of England. Now, however, the danger was too ex- 
treme for further delay. The fear of bankruptcy in Ireland, the 
non-importation agreements, which were beginning to tell upon Eng- 
lish industries, the threatening aspect of an armed body which already 
counted more than 40,000 men, the determined and imanimous atti- 
tude of the Irish Parliament, the predictions of the Lord Lieutenant 
tbat all future military grants by Ireland depended upon his course, 
the danger that Engbuid, in the midst of a dangerous and disastrous 
war should be left absolutely without a friend, aU weighed upon his 
mind ; and at the dose of 1779, and in the beginning of 1780, a series 
<A measures were carried in England which exceeded the utmost that a 
few years before the most sanguine Irishman would have either ex- 
pected or demanded. The Acts which prohibited the Irish from 
-exporting their woollen manufactures and their glass were wholly re- 
pealed, and the great trade of the colonies was freely thrown open to 
them."} 

Edmund Burke, speaking as a member of the British Parliament, 
conjures up a vision of the Irish people resolute and armed demanding 

* See Webb's " Compenditun of Irish Biography." Artide '< Husaej Buigh." 

t «• Annals of Commeroe " toI. iii 

X *' The History of England in the 18th Century '* toL i?. 



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498 Irish Wool and Woollens. 

a free trade, and thuB describes the resolt : '* They (the Irish) in- 
terdict all commerce between the two nations. They deny all new 
supply in the House of Commons, although in time of war. They stint 
the trust of the old revenue, given for two years to all the king^s pre- 
decessors, to six months. The British Parliament, in a former session, 
frightened into a limited concession by the menaces of Ireland, 
frightened out of it by the menaces of ikgland, was now frightened 
back again, and made an universal surrender of all that had been 
thought the peculiar, reserved, uncommunicable rights of England; — 
the exclusive commerce of America, of Africa, of the West Indies — 
all the enumerations of the acts of navigation — all the manufactures—- 
iron, glass, even the last pledge of jealousy and pride, the interest 
hid in the secret of our hearts, the inveterate prejudice moulded into 
the constitution of our frame, even the sacred fleece itself, all went 
together. No reserve ; no exception ; no debate ; no discussion. A 
sudden light broke in upon us all. It broke in, not through well- 
contrived and well-disposed windows, but through flaws and breaches ; 
through the yawning chasms of our ruin. We were taught wisdom by 
humiliation. No town in England presumed to have a prejudice, or 
dared to mutter a petition."* 

Good grace, it is pleasant to record, characterised the last act of the 
drama. English traders, albeit sadly, maintained a becoming silence. 
LorcbB and Commons for once displayed unanimity in yielding to a just 
demand. The king exhibited a royal graciousness in assenting to the 
measure which repealed the prohibitoxy statutes of William III. Lord 
Hillsborough, in a letter dated the 2drd of December, 1779, thus com- 
mimicates the tidings of the royal assent to William Sexton Pery, the 
Speaker of the House of Conmions, Ireland : 

« The King is this moment returned from from giving his Boyal 
Assent to the Irish Woollen Bill, and I take the^Hberty to enclose to 
you a printed copy of it thus early, that you may not unnecessarily 
lose a moment of that pleasure which I am siire it will give you. I 
most sincerely congratulate with you upon this happy event for Ire- 
land, as I flatter myself I shall very soon after the recess have the 
pleasure fof doing upon the Export and Import Act to and from the 
colonies, &c. It is a very agreeable circumstance in the passing this 
Bill that there was not the least opposition in either House of Parlia- 
ment, and that His Majesty, to whom a Commission was proposed, 
was pleased to say he would go to the House in person, upon an occa- 
sion of so much importance to his faithful kingdom of Ireland."t 

Signal as was this triumph in the repeal, after eighty years, of 
the statutes which had ruined the woollen trade of Ireland, the patriots 

* " Speech at Bristol, prerioui to the Election " (1700). 
t Eighth Report of the Hiatorical Ifanuicript Commiinon. 



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Irish Wool and Woollens. 499 

were not so dazzled by suooess aa to forget that the victory had still to 
be secured. The cause might again be lost unless the power of Eng* 
land to make laws for Ireland were surrendered. Therefore, they 
pushed on to the attack of the inner stronghold. In 1782, after a 
tyranny of nearly three hundred years, Poynings' Act was annulled, 
and the commercial freedom of Ireland established on a sound foun- 
dation. 

It has been said that the freedom of trade, thus fought for and 
obtained, did little more than put an end to smuggling. Certain it is, 
however, that a great impetus was given to the woollen industries in 
Ireland by the inspiriting effect of the Volunteer movement, and by 
the substantial encouragement bestowed by the Irish Parliament on 
the premier trade. The manufacturers met the demand for home 
production by increased energy and improved skill, and many thou- 
sands of hands were kept in work all over the country. Less wool 
was exported than formerly, but a larger quantity of manufactured 
goods was sent out. Despite of vicissitudes, occasioned by war and 
other causes, the woollen trade prospered during the twenty years that 
followed its liberation. 

Then came the Union. It cannot be maintained that the act of 
Union inflicted any injury on the Irish woollen trade. On the con- 
trary, it removed disabilities which the repeal of 1779 had left in vkstvk 
quo, and placed Ireland on an equal footing with England in regard 
to the staple manufacture. But what ensued ? There ensued, first a 
gradual, and then an accelerated decline in manufacturing industry 
thoroughout the country. The woollen trade, always spoken of in the 
eighteenth century as destroyed, was actually at that period in a 
flourishing condition when compared with the state it was reduced to 
in the nineteenth. 

At the date of the Union there were, it is calculated, between 5,000 
and 6,000 persons employed in Dublin and its vicinity, in the various 
branches of the woollen manufactory. In 1868 the number so em- 
ployed in all Ireland amounted only to 1,374 according to a return in 
Thorn's Official Directory. To the ruins of castles, abbeys, and lordly 
mansions that strewed the land, were added, in this our century, the 
ruins of mills. In almost every direction mouldering monuments and 
sad traditions survive to testify to the existence, up to a period not 
long gone by, of a trade that, with all its limitations, deserved to be 
called national. Completer ruin cotdd hardly be imagined. 

Here, no attempt shall be made to inquire into the causes of this 
calamity. It would be a tedious task, and certain to lead to the most 
disheartening reflections. Fortunately at this moment there are hope- 
ful signs of a revival, on an extensive scale, of woollen industries in 
Ireland. The exhibition of manufactures which is about to be opened 
in Dublin wiU, doubtless, afford gratifying proofs of renewed activity 

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500 " In Death not D.videdy 

in different parts of the ooontry ; will help to make more generaDy 
known the fact that even during the worst days some relics of amana- 
f actnre so andent, so national, and so rich in interest were preserved ; 
and furthennore, will show that in one branch of high daas woollens 
Ireland has, in our own day bid for and obtained a world-wide repu- 
tation for excellence. 

The manufacturers who, at this juncture, endeayoiir to restore the 
lost trade, undoubtedly merit the most liberal encouragement ; while 
those who represent establishments dating their foundation from pre- 
TJnion days, assuredly deserve not only this but the thanks of the 
nation. 



"IN DEATH NOT DIVIDED." 
In 1716 Alexander Pope wrote to Lady Mazy Wortley Montaga a 
most interesting, sympathetic account of two loyers who were killed 
by a flash of lightxdng on the eve of their marriage and buried in one 
grare. In his letter — which maybe found at page 193 of a work 
recently published, Mr. W. F. Scoone's *' Four Oenturies of English 
Letters" — the poet transcribes three epitaphs which he had composed 
on the occasion. The first runs thus : — 

" When eMtern loTen feed the funeni fire, 
On the mne pile the faithful Flur expire ; 
Here pitying Hearen that rirtue mutual found. 
And bUflted both, that it might neither wound. 
Hearts bo sincere the Almighty saw well pleased, 
Sent his own lightning, and the rictims seised." 

In his second attempt he condenses the foregoing a litde, without 
making it more Christian or more touching, as it ought to be : — 

'* Think not, by rigorous judgment seiied 
A pair so faithful could expire ; 
Victims so pure Hearen saw well pleased. 
And snatched them in celestial fire." 

Perhaps the third epitaph is the worst of all, as expressing least of 
the tender thoughts which the subject might have suggested. You 
might read the lines and never guess what sort of event had inspired 
them: — 

" Lire well aud fear no sudden fate : 
When God calls virtue to the graTe; 
Alike *tis justice, soon or late, 
Mercy alike to kill or save. 
Virtue unmored can hear the call, 
And face the flash that melts the balL*' 



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Michael Blake^ Bishop o/Dramore. 501 

The son <rf a true poet, whose title he inherits, and the brother of 
a poet who inherits his father^s name, and much more than his father's 
poetic genius — Sir Stephen de Yere — thinking that the epitaph of this 
hapless pair of rustics ought be more simple and natural than any of 
these, has written the following, and sent it for publication in our 
liagazine, which he does not favour thus for the first time : — 

The summer itonn is past and gone : 
^gain shines out the summer sun 
On lips that are, though pale and dead. 
With living smile still garlanded. 

They truly lored, and loring died. 
By Gh>d's own lightning purified : 
Ha saw their faith, and pitying gare 
At onoe a bridal and a grave. 



mOHAEL BLAKE, BISHOP OF DBOMOBE. 

BY THX EDITOB. 

Pabt VI. 
ICavt interesting names are mentioned in the private notes taken by 
Dr. Blake during his sojourn in Borne, from which we have already 
gliven some extracts ; for instance, the following passage, under the 
date " October 20th,1827,'' relates to the famous ''Father Prout," who 
was then simply Mr. Francis Mahony : — 

'' I wrote to-day to Bight Bev. Dr. Murphy of Cork. His lordship 
had sent by Mr. Frauds Mahony a commendatory and introductoiy 
letter, in consequence of which I was willing to receiye Mr. Mahony 
into this college, although his age (23) wotdd have disqualified him 
for any place among the students who have yet to finish their ordinazy 
theological course. I expressed to Dr. Murphy the regret I feel in 
being obliged to inform him that Mr. Mahony has not thought proper 
to enter this college unless under conditions which I could not admit. 
I gaye a detailed account of my short intercourse with Mr. M. I 
related the expression of o\ir Cardinal-Protector as to receiving him. 
Finally, I remarked that allowances must be made on behalf of Mr. 
Mahony, which, if they cannot go to the full length of justifying his 
conduct, may serve-to excuse it to a charitable mind." 

This passage corrects one of the many blunders which occur in the 
account given of Father Prout in the " Cabinet of Irish Literature" 

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502 Michael Blake, Bishop of Dromore. 

(vol. iii. p. 302), the fullest account that we have met with. Dr. Blake's 
words show that he was bom in 1805, and here the writer we refer to 
is right ; but, after stating that his parents designed him for the 
Church, he goes on to say : " For this end he was early placed at a Jesuit 
college in France, from whence in due time he proceeded to the Irish 
College in Rome. Here he wrote his famous * Shandon Bells ;' and 
in the comer of the room where his bed stood are still to be seen, 
traced on the wall, the first lines of the poem." It is after this, and 
after taking holy orders, that he is represented as acting as a teacher 
at Qongowes Wood College. The fact is that he was a '' Clongowes 
boy"* himself, educated there, and not in a French college, and his 
unsuccessful attempt to go through the training of a young Jesuit had 
been ended before he presented himself to Br. Blake at Borne. 
We have seen that he and Dr. Blake did not come to terms, and he did 
not go through his theological course in the Irish CoUegie. Did he 
write '' The Bells of Shandon" so early P and are its opening lines 
written on any wall in Bome ? When striking anecdotes are niebuhr- 
ized, they are apt to lose considerably in point. 

It is amusing, after hearing Dr. Blake's opinion of Mr. Mahony, to 
read Mr. Mahony's opinion of Dr. Blake. He gave it in one of his 
letters to the Daily New8, when he wasBoman correspondent to Charles 
Dickens. Talking in his unpleasant way about 0*Connell, eyen after 
his death, he describes the." pilgrimage of the heart," when O'Con- 
nell's heart, in a silver urn, was deposited in the Church of St. Agatha 
of the Goths, adjacent to the Irish College. " The seminary itself (he 
goes on to say) is far from realising the character of a national insti- 
tution ; it was got up a few years back by a Dr. Blake, whose imprac- 
ticable temper it had to contend with till his removal, and the appoint- 
ment of the present mild and considerate president. Dr. Cullen ; but it 
is by no means an improvement on Maynooth." 

Another name which will interest many is that of the Eev. Nicholas 
Callan oNfaynooth. We have seen that he was Dr. Blake's companion 
in travelling to Rome in August, 1824. He did not return to Ireland 
till May, 1826. How he spent the two years we are not informed. 
One of the results of his Italian sojourn was, no doubt, his series of 
translations of the writings of St. Alphonsus Liguori ; and another 

* A school-fallow of his remembera one day which was to hare been a plaj-day ; 
but, someone haTing in wantonness chalked the wall of one of the corridors, a prefect 
wisely or unwisely announced that there should be no play till the culprit came for- 
ward and pleaded ((uilty. There was a long pause, and the hopes of a play-day grew 
faint. Suddenly young Mahony stepped out» and said, < * I did it» sir !*' His oomtades 
who knew this was only done that they might not lose their recreation, did not blame 
him too harshly for the self -accusing falsehood. 

As on many other subjects, so also about Father Prout, the reader will find many 
new and interesting particulars in page 211 of the '' Life of Mary Aikenhead, Foond- 
reas of the Irish Sisters of Charity," by S. A. (Dublin : M. H. GiU & Son). 



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Michael Blake^ Bishop of Dromore. 503 

▼as Mb reception of the degree of Doctor of Divinity. Writisg to 
Archbishop Murray, on April 27th, 1826, Dr. Blake mentions '' Bev, Mr. 
Gallan's departure on Friday, the 2l8t instant, his having been 
honoured here with doctorship, his having been invited to Maynooth, 
to stand a ooncursus for one of the vacant chairs, and my request that 
his Ghraoe will honour him with his kind attention." And then, next 
month, May 14th, he gives a summary of what he had written to Dr. 
Curtis, who was Primate, and Dr. CaUan's archbishop. " I informed 
him of Bev. Mr. Callan's departure from Borne. I praised him, yet 
expressed my regret at noticing amongst the assemblage of good quali- 
ties in Mr. C, not a little of scrupulosity; hence it is fortunate that 
it is the intention of his friends in Ireland to settle him in Maynooth 
College, and in a chair where the scope of his attention will be directed 
to the exact sciences. I remarked tibat the weakness here alluded to 
was what prevented me from soliciting his Qrace to leave him in 
Rome for superintending this college." 

A familiar name occurring in some paragraph will sometimes make 
one reader pause with interest over it, while another passes on with 
disdain. Whenever you are particularly bored with an article here or 
elsewhere, dear reader, say meekly to yourself: ''This is evidently 
intended for somebody else — much good may it do him I" Thus, in 
Dr. Blake's journal the bare entry, " a letter for a Mr. O'Beilly," 
attracts our eyes, for it probably refers to the future Maynooth 'tro- 
fessor of Theology, who was was afterwards so greatly revered and 
loved (and is still in our memories) as Father Edmund O'Reilly, SJ. 

Meanwhile, while attending to many other matters chiefly connected 
with the ecclesiastical government of Ireland, the P.P. of SS. Michael and 
John's (for though he proposed to resign his parish, Dr. William Yore 
was only his administrator during these years of absence), the Irish 
priest never for a day lost sight of what was the special object of hi» 
mission to Bome. Even the passionless, businesslike entries in his diary 
reveal the brave and energetic perseverance that he displayed. He 
pursued the policy which the poor widow in our Lord's parable found 
successful even with the unjust judge. He never let the authorities 
and their servants alone till he gained his'point. It is quite a usual 
thing to see an entry on Monday, recording some promise given by 
some cardinal personally or through his secretary ; and then on the 
following Wednesday the earnest Celt calls to inquire if the promise 
has been fulfilled. We should in these instances have been greatly 
astonished if so short an interval as one clear day had proved sufficient 
for the fulfilment of such engagements ; but we are bound to confess 
thaty as a fact, o\ir feelings have never been subjected to this shock. 
The second entry always records a mere renewal of the promise. 

At last the Pope placed at Dr. Blake's disposal the Umbrian College;, 
but the gentleman who was actually in possession of the building still 
threw many obstacles in the way of the completion of the arrangemenj;|^[^ 



504 New Books. 

In calling onr attention to a mistake in one of our preyiona articles, 
the Rev. C. P. Meeban writes : " Leo XII. gave to Dr. Blake the college 
situated in the Piazza Santa Lucia near the Oeeu ; I think it was Gre- 
gory XYI. who gave St. Agatha's to Dr. CuUen." Our learned cor6»- 
pondenty belonging to the second generation of Roman students, oan 
back up hiB authority with the classic JSxperto erede Roberto. 

We cannot give all the particulars which might be dug up out of 
these yellow leaves regarding the refounding of the Irish College at 
Borne. Let us hope that the college archives contain some adequate 
record of these matters. Sooner or later all such records will be found 
most useful and interesting. This is particularly to be desired with 
regard to our great national seminary of Maynooth. What more 
interesting subject could engage the skilful pen which is sketching the 
ancient "Irish Theologians" in the IriBh EeeUnMtieai Eeeordf That 
eminently useful periodical affords special facilities for the piecemeal 
publication of such mhnoires pour aervir as will be a precious Godsend 
to some Maynooth professor who towards the dose of the twentieth 
centuxy may devote a stately octavo to the histoxy of his Alma Mater. 



NEW BOOKS. 

I. The Diitnal Seunee: a Critieum on Modem Engluh PoUtiedl 
Economy. By Wnxuic Dxixoir, M.B.I.A., of the Irish and 
American Bar. (Dublin: M. H. Gill & Bon, 1882). 

Mb. Dillon's contribution to the study of political economy is a work 
which, we trust, will have a wide circulation. It exposes some of the 
crude and disputed theorems of economical writers, and calls attention, 
Above all, to the errors they commit when teaching within the sphere 
of sociology. Cardinal Newman, as a representative of Catholic teach- 
ing, has established the fact that knowledge has its laws of pre-eminence 
and subordination ; and, arguing from Christian principles, shows that 
theology, or the science of God, should exercise a controlling effect on 
■all other studies. This doctrine is, as we might expect, ignored by 
modem thought in England, and public writers on political economy 
undertake to teach to governments the path which they should 
pursue. There must be a seientia prima, a dominating soience,and why 
should not political economy seize on the vacant throne ? 

The statesmen, however, as Mr. Dillon points out, do not show that 
<locility of spirit which scientific writers are prone to expect. The 
practical statesman finds himself face to face with the complex instincts 

. Digitized by VjOOQIC 



New Books* . 505 

and tendencies of human nature, and cannot devote his thoughts and 
energies simply to promoting the wealth of a nation. A nation, like 
an individual, has a thousand objects which it may pursue or foster. 
It has its fame and reputation, its pleasures, its instincts for art and 
science; also, in some degree — ^for nations, like individuals, are never 
wholly corrupt — its instincts of religion, of right and of wrong. A 
prudent statesman, therefore, is careful not to shock the moral sense 
of a nation, careful, likewise, not to interfere with its fame or its plea- 
sures, and from time to time he must subordinate to these things con- 
siderations of wealth and its increase. 

As the English are a race not inordinately given to the analysis of 
complex ideas, the political economists in England have not met, some 
individual cases excluded, that rebuke at the hands of their countiy- 
men which they have richly merited. It is no flattery to the TCngli>h 
nation to say that, although it loves " riches and golden store," neither 
it nor any other nation can make riches the sole object of its national 
existence. If political economists are unwise enough to suppose the 
contrary, they will find a practical disavowal of their theorems in the 
conduct of living statesmen. 

Again, evexy science has peculiar dangers attaching to it in the 
tranjsition that is made from theory to practice; and political econo- 
mists make frequent mistakes under this head. The term '' doctri- 
naire" is applied to those who take isolated scientific laws as the sole 
guide of action. If the bowler were to confine his attention to one 
particular law of motion, he might imagine that the cricket ball flung 
from his hand would go on for ever. The doctrinaire either excludes 
the consideration of laws which enter into a given problem or fails in 
his grasp of actual events and ciroumstanceSi 

There is no doubt that, in this country, the ordinary laws of society 
are modified by facts that are almost uexampled ebewhere. Many of 
the inhabitants of Ireland are but little interested in the wealth or 
pzoeperity of their country. They spend their money in other lands, 
they imitate the ways of other nationalities, they have ceased to 
encourage the schools of their own country. To take an example from 
one of our fiourishing cities, let us ask ourselves what would be the 
result if its inhabitantswere to purchase nothing within it, nor to make 
use in any way of the literary, scientific, or recreational resources which 
Cork, for instance, supplies. The theatres of Cork would soon be 
dosed, the retail shops would have no further ra%%on tPStre, the Queen's 
Colleges would cease to exist for Corkmen, the booksellers, the sta- 
tioners, the grocers, the confectioners, would soon suspend business, 
and Cork would cease to be in population the third town in Ireland. 
A state may be regarded, with some exceptions which it is unnecessary 
to insist on here, as a dty on a large scale. If ,its inhabitants, from 
whatever cause, cease to countenance its manuf acturep, its industry, its 

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5o6 New Books. 

resources for amusement and instruction, they doom the nation to a 
certain, thougli, perhaps, a lingering death. 

In applying the ascertained principles of social science to Ireland 
a careful study should be made of actual facts. A Christian science 
of sociology is nowhere, as far as we know, taught publicly in the 
British Isles. Catholic writers of great merit have written upon this 
subject, but the teaching which is confined to books rarely leavens the 
public intelligence. Hr. Dillon points out in his book some of the 
leading errors of modem sociologists. He warns his readers against 
the tacit and false assumption that wealth is the aim of man in all 
circumstances. He shows the danger of applying to abnormal states 
of social life the laws that hold in a healthy or ideal commonwealth. 

Let us hope that the young intelligence of Ireland will develop 
his suggestions and endeavour, by a combined study of science and 
facts, to develop, on correct Christian principles, the l^eorems of poli- 
tical economy and of social life. Clinical lectures are said to be of 
great use in acquiring the theory and practice of medicine ; and an 
impoverished country, with a population daily dwindling, must be an 
object of deep interest to a scientific economist. 

n. Other I^ew Puhlieatums. 

We pledge ourselves to operate next month on as many as we 
possibly can of the new books which have accumulated on our disseci- 
ing-table. The two latest of these have arrived from Granville Man- 
sions, the new establishment of Messrs. Bums & Oatee: Father 
Bertrand Wilbeiforce's life of his sainted namesake and fellow- 
Dominican, St. Lewis Bertrand, and the fine ample Life of St. Philip 
Neri, by the Oratorian Bishop of Capua, which has been worthily trans- 
lated by Father Pope of the Birmingham Oratory. We must also 
give one preliminary word of welcome to two elegant and solid volumes 
which the CathoUc Publication Society of New York has sent to us : 
Monsignor Beton's ''Essays, chiefly Soman," and "Lectures and 
Essays " by Bishop Spalding. 



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( 507 ) 



O'OONNELL: 

HIS DIABY TBOU 1 792 TO l802, AlTD LETTSB8. 
VOW I*OK THS nBST TDf ■ PUBUSHSD. 

Pabt IV. 

[The burat of despondency with which ourneztinBtaiment of O'Connell's 
unpublished diary opens, seems chiefly due to his uncle's refusal to give 
him the means of entering the Lawyers' Artillery Corps. Afterwards 
we see that the good old man relented before a week but the youug 
man records later on that, if the refusal had been persisted in, it would 
have been much better for his legal studies. But how striking are 
some of these revelations of his earliest manhood when read by us now 
in the month which sees the inauguration of the magnificent monu- 
ment erected by the genius of Foley and the gratitude of Ireland to 
the colossal fame of O'Connell.] 

Wednesday, January ISth, 1797. — ^I received a letter from my uncle 
Maurice, refusing, in the strongest terms, to let me enter the Lawyers* 
Artillery. What a strange world we live in — ^how strange, fiat, and 
unprofitable it seems to me 1 I was informed by my father in a post- 
script to my uncle's letter that John and Miles Mahony were to fight 
on Friday last Would that I knew the event of the duel. John, if 
you have perished ; if you have deserted me so early in life ; if you 
render my path clouded and cheerless, why should I remain here the 
sport of contingencies and victim of regulated events ? No, my dear 
brother, I cannot afford to part with you. my cold, unfeeling heart, 
how can you bear the thought ? 

ITiureday, I9tk January , 1797. — My mind is more calm to-day ; study 
has restored it to tranquilliiy. I finished Henry's '* England/' read 
tweniy-five pages of Watson's ** Chemistry," treating of the causes of 
subterranean fires. If I have an opportunity in the summer I wiU 
make a volcano. I read 171 pages of the introduction to '' Travels of 
Anacharsis and the War with Persia in the years 479 and 480 before 
Christ," with enthusiasm. The heroes slumber in peace at Thermo- 
pylae and PlatsBa, but their actions live in peace ; deathless is their 
renown while the doud-oapped palaces vie in glory and smoulder in 
oblivion ; while the mountains rear their heads on high, and dwindle 
by degrees into the plain, their fame continues to increase from age to 
age. Epaminondas was a man of great talents and virtue. The day 
after he obtained the victory at Leuctra, he exclaimed : '' What gives 
me most pleasure is that the authors of my existence live to enjoy my 
renown.** Amiable piety ! 

Vol. X.. No. 110, Auguit, 1882. Digitized by OlDOgle 



5o8 (yConnelL 

I walked to-day with Dawson and Bennett; we talked some pure 
because moderate democracy. Hail liberty ! how cheering is thy 
name ; how happy would mankind be if thou wast uniyersally difihised. 
Strange thou should st be hateful to anyone, but thou art calumniated 
and disgraced by thy nominal advocates, the interested and those who 
grow fat on the miseries of man. The tyrant and the violent dema^ 
gogue condemn thee ; the one raises his voice aloud to declaim against 
thee, the other more effectually damns thee by his support. 

Monday ^ January 23r(^, 1797. — I received three letters to-day from 
my uncle, my mother, and John. My uncle gives me leave to enter 
into the corps. John informs me he and Miles Mahony met near 
Killamey, but did not fire. I wrote to-day to Captain O'Connell, of 
Carrick-on-Suir, and shall be impatient until I get his answer. I wish 
I could make a proper estimate of my own talents, but that is impos- 
sible sometimes, and this indeed most frequently ; I am led away by 
vanity and ambition to imagine that I shall cut a great figure on the 
theatre of the world. Sometimes I fear I shall never rise to mediocrity; 
but this I always think, that nothing could shake the steadiness with 
which I would pursue the good of my country. Distant prospects rise 
unbidden to my view — they are not unwelcome to my heart. 

Saturday f January 28^A, 1797. — Paddy Hayes called on me this 
morning before I was up. We breakfasted and walked for a long 
time together. We talked of the diversions of Iveragh, <fec. I have 
been thinking this day of the plan to be pursued whm leome into Far- 
liament. If to distinguish myself was the object of my wishes, that 
would be best done by becoming a violent oppositionist, but as it will 
be my chief study to serve my country, moderation will be a proper 
instrument for that purpose. Moderation is the characteristio of pa- 
triotism; of that patriotism which seeks for the happiness of mankind. 
There is another species caused by hatred of oppression; this is a 
passion, the other a principle. 

I have been since Monday attending drill regularly ; I have also 
dined in the Hall, keeping my Terms, which is much more expensive 
than I imagined I read nothing. 

February 6th, 1797. — ^Yesterday I appeared for the first time in 
uniform, in the undress jacket of the Lawyers' Artillery. I received 
two letters to-day, one from my unde promising cash ; the other from 
my father with an order for £10. This money from my father I must 
not accept 

February Ibth, 1797.— I dined with Franks. I should have written 
to my father. I wrote to Charles Casey on business. I did not attend 
drill to-day, but read a good deal of Anacharsis. The Athenians had 
a great deal in common with the French, I mean of the monarchy. 
The changes which the spirit of the Bevolution will produce are by me 
AS yet undiscovered; great and decided they must be. Spmeof the 

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GConnelL 509 

national traits may be lost ; others, and strong ones, too, may more 
than fill the place of the first. The Athenians were refined and frivol- 
ous, polite and luxurious. The French possessed all these qualities. 
The Athenians loved liberty — ^here the altered situation of the French 
may produce resemblance. As regards the system of Athenian educa- 
tion, I admire very much the continual application made to the reason 
of the pupil. Authority claims nothing, argument everything. It 
may appear trivial to add that the young Athenian was taught to use 
both hands indiscriminately.* The Scythians were in the habit of 
doing the same. 

I lately read '' L'Origine des decouvertes attribuees aux Modemes, 
par Dateau." The author proves that Aristotle knew the merit and 
utility of doubting, and that he was of Locke's opinion on the model 
of acquiring ideas. Plato was, I believe, the advocate, and the first 
advocate of innate ideas. 

I was in the House of Commons this morning. Sir Laurence 
Parsons spoke on the necessity of placing Ireland in a state of de- 
fence. His oratorical talents are below mediocrity. Mr. Pelham was 
not in the House. I, too, will be a member. Young as I am, unac- 
quainted with the ways of the world, I should not even now appear 
contemptible. I will steadfastly and perseveringly attach myself to 
the real interests of Ireland. I shall endeavour equally to avoid the 
profligacy of corruption and the indulgence of unreasonable patriot- 
ism. Moderation is the chief mark. I dined this day at Mr. Day's. 

Thwiday^ Fehrua/ry 23rd, 1797. — Certain it is I should have read and 
written more, had I never entered any corps ; yet it will be pleasant to 
say hereafter, *^ I was a volimteer." I spent greater part of this day 
under arms. We taught the exercise of the cannon. We carried 
one three-pounder from the ordnance stores to a yard on the quay be-, 
longing to a Mr. M'Evoy, one of the corps. Thence we attended it to 
another yard in Merrion-square. 

I have again read a good deal of Henry's '^England," and am often 
amazed at finding so much knowledge imilluminated by a single spark 
of philosophy. I have often wished that I was a philosopher; I have 
often wished it in vain. If philosophy illumined my path, I should not 
for so long a time have permitted my steps to be unnoticed. But no, 
I am more weak than a woman. Gtood God ! That man alone can be a 
philosopher who is superior to all circumstances because he is prepared 
for them ; who regards with calm coldness the vicissitudes of human 
affairs. I am tired of life. If the future resemble the past, what 
is the advantage of living ? A revolution would not produce the hap* 
pinees of the Irish nation. 

• Mr. CQuwrlM Beade, tho ooTaliBt, htm reoentlj TentiUtod thia important quMtioq. 
— BcLLlL 



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510 OConnell. 

I loaded the cannon twice to-day ; we had two out. Tom Burke is 
in town. 

Mmreh 14M, 1797.— I am reading the " Jockey Club." Vice reigns 
triumphant at the British Oourt. Vice and error are the rules of the 
practice of the English GK>Yemment. The English have become be- 
sotted and slavish. The spirit of liberty is checked to protect property 
from the attacks of French innovators. The corrupt higher orders 
tremble for their vicious enjoyments. 

Thady Duggan went off to-day to the East Indies. I have finished 
the " Jockey Club" — Umpora, mores/ I have spent four hours in 
reading. My mind is tranquil, my senses feel with precision, my ex- 
pression is accurate. I love liberty, and this is a moment fit for in- 
dulging reflections on that subject. I love liberiy as conducive to in- 
cridase human happiness. Much of the misery of man is derived from 
the form of government under which he lives. Oppression, oppression 
harasses his faculties ; privilege, confined by accident, insults his un- 
derstanding ; his industry is condemned to support the f oUies and vices 
of men who help him not. When it is exclidmed, *' the splendour of 
Government must be maintained," it should be mildly but firmly re- 
plied, " No ; but the happiness of the people should be established." 
In fact, the only rational motive for forming a government is the good 
of the parties forming it. 

Saturday, March 25th, 1797. — I have been reading six hours 
to-day, " Anacharsie," Watson's ''Essays," Henry's "England," 
and some pages of the "EoUiad.'* Virtue, thou certainly art 
more than a name: thou bestowest fimmessand quietude on the 
heart of mortals, whilst thou exaltest their conceptions. I was 
going to say that virtue makes the judgment correct, the conception 
more accurate ; but it is in fact the effect of accurate conception and 
correct judgment. After having, in the conviction of my soul, made 
this eulogiimi on virtu'e, let me tremble while I ask myself how much 
of myself entered into my desire or dread of a revolution. Oh ! if I 
was possessed of virtue, I would wish for the happiness alone of man- 
kind. If I possessed virtue, I should meet every want without shrink- 
ing. It is impossible for any yoimg man at the present time to guess 
with probable success at the mode in which his existence will termi- 
nate. This opinion has been in my mind for the last two days, and in 
consequence I have been accustoming myself to consider dea^ without 
shrinking. Much remains to be done before I can familiarize myself 
with the idea ; but philosophy and the practice of theoretic virtues, 
Where there is no opportunity for the real, may soon make me look 
upon all events as indifferent to me individually. I must avoid dis> 
dosing my political sentiments as freely as I do; at present it would be 
•a devilish unpleasant thing to be caged ! — ^Nonsense I Liberality can 
never become dangerous. 

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OConnelL 511 

Mmday, May Ut, 1797.— For nearly four weeks in April I dept at 
Bennett's. His wife wasoonfined on the 3rd, and he was absent on 
CSiooit. On the 9th I thought she would not recover. The state of 
affairs at present is not a little singular. We are probably near a 
great change. The Duke of Leinster was deprived of his place in the 
Hanaper; he has, I am [there is here a break or omission of some sort.] 

January \Zih, 1798.-~I left Mrs. Jones' this day. Some other time 
I will descant on my reasons. My heart is now sick. I left Dublin 
for my father's, or rather my uncle's, about the 23rd of June, and re- 
mained there till the 3rd November. Since then I have been in town, 
and at Mrs. Jones'. I misspent my time during summer, and have not 
done better since. I will now take up the study of the Law with the 
ardour my situation requires, and think I will persevere in the rigid 
execution of this duty. I never was more intent upon anything, yet 
such is the complexion of affairs that it must appear extremely doubt- 
ful whether I shall be called to the Bar. But my heart is too sick for 
political disquisitions. 

Decemher 31«/, 1798. — I resume my journal after a year of silence— 
a year wretchedly misspent. My only consolation is, that I am resolved 
to improve. Alas, it makes me sorrowfully smile when I look at this 
irregular journal, filled with good resolutions, and to sigh when I 
reflect how little fruit they have produced. But let me continue my 
journal with regularity, and all must end welL I have several de- 
terminations to form ; let me give them vitality by committing them 
to paper. My first resolution is no less than to be virtuous — ^this 
includes everything. Virtue should, I am convinced, be the pursuit of 
every individual, did each but know she alone bestows happiness. All 
my other resolutions are but emanations from this one. To be virtuous 
is to be happy. Every thing contrary to our happiness is necessarily 
contrary to virtue, for my definition of virtue is, that quality which 
produces happiness. Vice may be defined that which causes misery. 
Many, indeed most men, seek for sensual pleasures ; but the gratifica- 
tion of the hour is pimished by what follows. Thus many find a 
vicious pleasure in drinking ; but punishment awaits them ; stupidity, 
sickness, and contempt are in the train of this gratification. How 
feelingly ought not I write on this subject; I, whose head aches, 
whose stomach is nauseated, and whose reflections are embittered by 
last night's debauch. Oh, let me avoid with the utmost care the fatal 
vice of drunkenness ! Let me continually arm myself with the conviction 
I now feel of its consequent immorality. Let me for ever retain the 
salutary hatred which I now feel against this odious vice. My resolu- 
tion is formed, and from this moment I appeal to the future pages of 
this journal for the result. I must also become regular in my hour of 
going to bed and rising, as I have been shamefully deficient in this 
particular. ^ . 

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512 (yConnell. 

With this day doses the year, and -with to-morrow the figares 
diange. The artificial periods fixed by man warn us of the flight of 
time — an hour and an hour, to-morrow and to-morrow, and the wisest 
that inhabits this our ant-hill yanishes from our sight and is seen no 
more. Maurice ! O my brother ! how early in life hast thou for- 
saken me. Oh ! accursed be the authors of the war, and accursed be 
the breeze whose pestiferous breath brought death to my brother. 
On the mountains of St. Domingo his remains lie mouldering, whilst 
the negro trains his savage bands around, and the more sayage white 
man ** hides his diminished head." Could I but throw myself upon 
my brother's grave ; could I ever behold the spot where for ever his 
bones are laid, it were some consolation. Would I had never been 
bom. life is short and full of sorrow ; man is bom to trouble as the 
sparks fly upwards. How dreary, desolate, and solitary would not a 
few deatiis more make me ; yet the revolving years will bring them. 

Gk>dl Eternal Being! of all thy creatures man siirely is most 
wretched. Thou art indeed inscrutable, and I adore Thee. 

Wednesday y January ^nd^ 1799.— I went to bed last night at one and 
got up at eleven. Oh, shame, shame ! The pursuit of happiness is the 
business of life ; yet how few know what it consists of. Truth is its 
ground-work, beneflcence its only support. I wish to be happy» but 
become less so every day. Day after day I lose that delicacy of feeling 
which formerly governed my mind. truth! shine once more on the 
head of thy votary. Virtue, thou alone canst give happiness ; without 
thee life is but a miserable burden. 

I dined this day with Bennett ; we talked much of the late unhappy 
rebellion. A great deal of innocent blood was shed. Good Qoi^ what 
a brute man becomes when ignorant and oppressed. liberty, what 
horrors are committed in thy name I May every virtuous revolutionist 
remember the horrors of Wexford! 

January 4^A, 1799. — 1 have been this day, and indeed for some 
time, reading a great deal of law — ^Blackstone and Gummon on FeetaiL 

1 also inserted many remarks from them into a book kept for that 
purpose. I went to bed last night at half -past twelve and got up this 
day at a quarter-past ten. When shall 1 correct myself of this sluggish 
habit ? We will try to-morrow morning. Yet 1 fear this custom is 
stealing on me, and how much valuable time is lost by it ; how much 
do my mind and my heart sufPer by it. Well, if it is now conquered. 
I know not what to write upon. I must again repeat myself, and take 
notice of what 1 have lost in strength of mind, in love for virtue ; 
what I have lost in conversation, eloquence. I have no longer my 
former fluence and happiness of expression, because I do not think with 
the intensity and accuracy I used to do. The study of eloquent writers 
is of the utmost importance to him who would acquire a graceful and 
easy style. For my part, I always feel benefitted by the pemsal of 

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Chrisi the Gleaner. 3 1 3 

Oibbon, a great deal of thought is expressed by almost every word lie 
uses. In the course of another y«ar I shall be a tolerably good lawyer. 
My present method of studying the common and statute law is, I believ e* 
the best. When I have perused it for a time, I will commence equity 
on the same plan. 

Tue9day, June Ist^ 1802. — I recommence my journal rather to insert 
a detail of facts than to give way to desultory observations. I will 
keep it as a monitor to record my diligence or waste of time. I went 
to bed last night at half -past eleven and got up at nine. I read a good 
deal of the law on Fines, drew a declaration on common promises — 
Almond r. O'Leaiy. I read six hundred pages of '* Paradise Lost," 
also fifteen pages of *'Milton*s Life." He was bom in London, 
December 9th, 1608. I also wrote seven letters. 

June 2nd, 1802. — I went to bed last night at half -past eleven, rose 
to-day at half after seven. I prepared myself before I went to court 
to argue the case of Galway r. Brie, but I should have argued it badly. 
In point of preparation I am too negligent. On my return I searched 
authorities on tiie suit of Andila Querela for Gorham v, Croncelbuiy. 
I read some of *' Milton's Paradise Lost " aloud. 

June Srd, 1802.— I went to bed last night about eleven, and got up 
this morning at seven. I spent all day until four reading law. I 
pursued my researcher in Gorham's case. Had I gone down to the 
assises as well prepared as I am now, we should not have been defeated. 
I read " Cruise on iPines." 

June 4dhj 1802. — ^I went to bed last night at half -past ten, got up at 
half-past seven. I was in court for greater part of the day, though I 
made but one insignificant motion. I drew part of the answer in the 
injunction case of Murphy v. Baldwin. 

{Sere the Journal ends.) 



OHEIST THE GLEANEB. 

IN a vision 'of the night 
Looked I upon fields of light, 
Spreading broad beneath the moon, 
Eair as though the night were noon. 

Moonlight fell on golden sheaves. 
Woven as the reaper weaves ; 
Bounteous harvest gathered there 
Hath repaid the Master's care. 



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514 Christ the Gleaner. 

All liis toilers soundly sleep* 
One alone doth vigil keep ; 
Who is this that cometh last 
Where the reaper's feet have passed ? 

One who walketh grave and slow. 
Going as the gleaners go. 
Stooping oft full tenderly, 
That no grain escape his eye. 

Ghithering in secluded spot 
What the gleaners have forgot ; 
In his mantle deep and wide 
Many a broken stalk doth hide. 

Ere the morning shall arise, 
Christ the Gleaner with his prize 
Maketh goodly sheaf and crown 
Out of what was trodden down. 

Bruised and broken, held unsound, 
Left to rot upon the ground, — 
E'en the wisest gleaner saw 
Nothing there but worthless straw. 

Only He with eyes of light 
Pierced beyond our mortal sight ; 
In the sullied husk he knew 
Living grain was hid from view. 

Lo ! it is the darkest hour, 
Stars have set and clouds do lower ; 
Christ the Gleaner gleaneth still. 
Casting radiance where He will. 

When the sun shall flood the land, 
And the golden sheaves shall stand, 
Bipened for the Harvest-home^ 
Waiting till the Master eome : 

Biper, fuller, none than they 
Trodden once into the day ; 
Gleaned from dust by hand DivinOi 
In eternal light they shine. 

B.M. 



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( 515 )* 



DEAD BEOKE: 

A TALB OF THB WESTEBN STATES. 

BT THB LATB DUXOK o'bRIBB. 
AFTHOA OF I** WRAXE. BLAKC," "WIDOW XBLTILLS*a B0>RDI1fa«H0XreB," fto. kc. 

CHAPTER Xn. 

WILLIAM M'OBEOOB's KSVENGE. 

BoBBBT left Mr. Marsh at the door of his office, and then returned 
to his hotel to write to Lucy. 

" No one," he wrote, " has given me a hint of the amount of for- 
tune coming to us ; but I suppose my unde died very rich, for Mr* 
IdTingstone told me he has left large sums to public institutions. 
This delay will make a great inroad upon my elender purse, and I 
want to be home with my darlings on Ohristmas day. So if there is 
to be any delay in settling my legacy, I shall ask Mr. Liyingstone to 
act for me. I think he would do so ; you would like his appearance 
▼ery much. He is a most kind-hearted looking old gentleman.'' 

Bobert took his letter to the post-office, and then strolled about the 
streets. He had no one to call on ; did not know one person in that 
big dty, but the two gentlemen he had met since his arrival ; for as 
he knew before he left home, Jenkins and his wife were in New 
Orleans, the former, as usual, on the eve of making a large fortune. 

Very depressing in its effects is a large city to a stranger with a 
slim purse; very depressing, but very salutary, is the lesson it gives 
to '* our well-known and respectable fellow-citizen. Alderman Brass," 
who buys the momingpaper as he gets on board the eastern bound train, 
and reads over, for the fifth or sixth time, the complimentary notice of 
his intended visit east, and fully expects the eastern papers to copy it; 
but no sooner does he arrive in the big city, than an utter extinguisher 
falls upon his local greatness ; nay, his very identity seems to be slip- 
ping away from him, and he feels that if he should fall into the river, 
the heading of the eastern item, announcing the accident, would read : 
•* The body of an unknown man found in the North Biver." To be 
sure, as likely as not, on his return home, a brass band will blow all the 
old, nauseous, petty vanity back into him, and thus obliterate the lesson. 

Robert,, being the most anxious, was the first to arrive at Mr. 
Marsh's office on the twenty-second. 

" You are early, Mr. M*G^rego^," remarked the lawyer, as he shook 
hands with him. ** The grave and reverend signers who represent the 
institutions to which your unde has left bequests wiU not be here for 

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ji($ Dead Broke. 

some time yet. Sit down and make yourself at home. There are the 
newspapers if you wish to look them over." 

Eobert took one up and read a whole leader through, without under- 
standing one sentence ; he might as well be reading a language he did 
not understand. Although outwardly calm he'was nervously excited, 
now that the time was come for the reading of his uncle's wilL 

"Poor Lucy," he thought, "no doubt she is just as anxious and 
nervous as I am this morning ; I will send a telegram when I know 
the amount." 

" One by one, with short intervals intervening between each arrival, 
four gentlemen of sour visages, representing officially, gentle charity, 
and Christian love, entered the office. Eobert|was introduced to each 
as the nephew of Mr. William McGregor, and was evidently regarded 
by them as an interloper. 

The first gentleman who arrived took his seat dose to the wall, and 
pasted his head against it, and the other three ranged themselveB 
alongside, in like position. They spoke in monosyllables, cautiously, 
giving side glances at each other. 

There were big sums in this business ; the old miser had out up 
well, and they were not going to compromise themselves. 

A.t length Mr. Livingstone arrived. He bowed familiarly to the 
gentlemen ranged along the wall, and shook hands with Bob€^ ; then 
Mr. Marsh, coming in from the front office, the banker handed him 
the will. Bobert, feigning a calmness he was far from feeling, pre- 
pared to listen to the reading of it. 

After describing real estate in different parts of the city of New 
York, which the testator died possessed of, and enumerating several 
large sums of money in securities, and lodged in bank, the will directed 
that all the real estate should be sold, and the amount realised, to- 
gether with the sums of money already mentioned, and the principal 
sum of ten thousand pounds, invested by the testator in the "Knglia^ 
funds, to be divided in equal shares, between four societies named in 
the will, and which were represented by the four gentiemen I have 
already spoken of as being present. 

Then came the part referring to Robert ; it said : 

" To my nephew, Robert M'Gregor of P , in the state of ]&Gchi- 

gan, I leave all the property which a certain document directed to 
him, and now lodged in the Livingstone Bank, Broadway, will entitie 
him to." 

"Here is the document, Mr. M'Gregor," said Mr. Livinstone, 
coming forward ; " it is sealed and in the exact condition as when 
lodged with us." 

" Before this document is read," said one of the trusteeSy " I will 
ask Mr. Marsh if its contents can affect the bequests mentioned.*' 

" We cannot know that," he said, " until we hear what the con- 
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Dead Broke. ^i^ 

tents are. This may be a will of a later date, doing away with all 
foimer ones." 

There was an tmeasj movement among the trustees. 
"Bnt it is, doubtless," continued the lawyer, *• the title-deed of 
property not mentioned in the will ; it feels like parchment ; open the 
oorer, Mr. M'Ghregor." 

Thns directed, Bobert, with a hand, that despite all his effort, 
trembled, broke the seal ; those present stooped forward, and saw him 
draw from its cover an old moth-eaten rabbit skin — William McGre- 
gor's revenge. Surprise, and surprise alone, was depicted on eveiv 
oonntenance save one, and a saucer-eyed man, the trustee of the Society 
for the Conversion of the Heathen, laughed outright 

Mr. Livingstone gave him a severe look ; but the heartless laugh 
was of benefit to Bobert at that moment of supreme agony. It helped 
to nerve him, as a dash of cold water will keep a person from fainting. 
There he stood, pale, rigid, his eyes fixed on the cursed, mouldering 
thing before him. Mr. Livingstone went over to him. " There is 
some mistake here," said the banker. 

" There is no mistake," replied Bobert, without moving his eyes ; 
for the whole scene in the woods years ago — Indian Dick, Jim, the 
diabolical look of hatred on his uncle's face— was passing like a pano- 
rama before him. 

Mr. Livingstone spoke again in a kind voice : '' Oan you explain 
this, Mr. McGregor ? Do you wish to do so ?" 

For the first time since the opening of the package, Bobert looked 
up. "Yes," he replied to Mr. Livingstone, " it is due to myself to 
do so ?" In a few words, he related the boyish trick played on the 
miser, and his subsequent anger. " And this is his revenge," he con- 
cluded, '' although he could not have calculated how full and perfect 
it would be. I suppose, Mr. Marsh, I have no further business here," 
and he moved towards the door. But Mr. Livingstone interposed to 
prevent him. 

" Do not leave yet, Mr. McGregor, or say that you will come home 
with me ; my carriage is at the door." 

But Bobert shook his head and moved on. 

"It is not safe," said Mr. Livingtone aside to Mr. Marsh, "to 
allow him to leave in the state of mind he is in." 

Bobert overheard the remark, and coming back, took the banker's 
hand. " There is no danger, sir," he said, with a sad smile, " I am 
neither a coward nor an infidel. I am going home, Mr. Livingstone, 
to my wife and children." And before any further remark could be 
made, he had left the office. 

"Oonfoimd the whole business," said Mr. Livingstone, "I wish 
the old miser had not brought me into witnessing his devilry. I wish 
now I had refused to act." 

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5i8 Dead Broke. 

** You can withdraw yet," said the saaoer-eyed tmstee. 

** I will think of it, sir," answered the banker, gruffly. " You are 
a friend to the heathen, I believe. Well, I may require your good 
offices, for, egad, after what I have just witnessed, I am half indined 
to turn heathen myself." 

The old gentleman was evidently out of humour, and walking into 
the outer office, remained there unldl the four trustees had taken their 
departure. Then he burst in upon Marsh, with, *' I say. Marsh, can't 
something be done P'* 

" How do you mean ?" 

** To smash this will, cheat old M'Oregor, the devil, and the hea- 
then, and give the nephew what should be his by right. G^ie infernal 
old rabbit skin, I should think, would convince any jury of insanity.** 

'*I am afi^d," said the lawyer, smiling, "the testator, like 
Hamlet, had too much ' method in his madness,' to allow that point 
to be raised with the remotest chance of success. That was, indeed, a 
very distressing scene we have just witnessed." 

'* Very, very," said Mr. Livingstone. " This nephew, I should 
think, is not in very good circumstances ; a perfect gentleman, too, in 
manner. Do you know anything about his affairs ?'* 

'* Yes, we had quite a confidential chat the day after we were at 
the bank. His father, of whom he speaks with the greatest reverence 
and love, left him quite well off ; but he lost everything by the failure 
of a Western bank, and a wild speculation he was induced to enter 
into ; swindled, I should think," concluded the lawyer, shrugging his 
shoulders. 

" Do you know what hotel he is stopping at ?" 

''No.*' 

" Well, if he calls upon you before leaving town — ^he will I should 
think — ^bring him to see me." 

'*! will do so,'* replied the other, as he bowed the good-natured 
banker out of the office. 

When Bobert McGregor left Mr. Marsh's office and reached the 
street, snow, accompanied with fierce gusts of wind, was falling. 
Facing the storm, he walked on, finding relief in the big snow-flakes 
that dashed against his throbbing temples. On, on he walked, con- 
scious of a dull sensation in his head^not pain, but heaviness, and 
with but one thought passing and repassing through his mind, with 
the regularity of the swaying movement of the pendulum of a dock — 
home, home — home, home. On he walked, leaving crowds and streets, 
and houses behind him, until he found himself outside the city, and 
his farther advance stopped by the deep snow that lay upon the 
ground. This sudden check recalled him, in a measure, to himself, 
and his mind began to free itself from the stupor that the shock of 
a terrible, himiiliating disappointment had plunged it in. Then, 



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Dead Broke. 519 

tlirougli the storm and blinding snow, there came* to him the sweet, 
loving face of Lucy, and her gentle words, " as God wills, Robert,'* 
seemed to sound in his ears. Clasping his hands, and looking upward, 
he repeated 'aloud, *' As God wills." Even as he spoke, the storm 
commenced to abate, the leaden colour of the sky changed to a yapouiy 
whiteness, the clouds divided, and Gtod's blessed sun looked down upon 
the earth. 

Eetracinghis steps, Bobert found himself once more in the crowded, 
noisy streets. Carriages, filled with beautiful, fashionably-dressed 
women, passed him by, and once his progress was retarded by a bevy 
of gay young girls, that came trooping and laughing out of a shop. 
Then he thought of his poor wife, anxiously and hopefully awaiting 
his return, and the sad disappointment he was about to inflict upon 
her, and in the agony that thought brought with it he clenched his 
hands. Once, too, he thought as the human stream swept by : " What 
if James Allen should come along now ?*' and for a little while after 
this, he regarded with interest the strange faces passing him by ; but 
soon, with a sigh, he ceased to do so. 

It may seem strange that the disappointment which the malice of 
his uncle had brought to him should have affected him a hundred-fold 
more than the loss of his whole fortune. But it must be remembered 
that when the first event occurred, he was young, fresh, strong, im- 
touched, imbroken by care, and that the more we have sufPered, the less 
we are able to endure. The bow continuaUy bent loses its elasticity. 

In his objectless wandering, Bobert had turned out of Broadway, 
up Park-row, into Chatham-street, and after a little time found him- 
self in the midst of a labyrinth of squalid, narrow, ill-lighted streets 
— ^the Five Points of New York — where misery, disease, and crime 
hold high carnival. At the time, this was a dangerous locality, even 
at noonday, and now the lamps were lighted ; but the practised eyes 
of the professional cut-throats and thieves of the Five Points, saw at a 
glance that Robert would be no profitable victim, and one fellow, who 
was lounging and smoking at the door of a low saloon, passing away 
the time until the hour for doing ** a little job " up town — which 
might include murder — should arrive, actually walked half a street, 
to show Robert his way back to Broadway. The man felt compli- 
mented by the confident way the latter had gone up to him and made 
inquiry. 

Once in Broadway, Bobert had no difficulty in finding the hotel he 
was staying at. Tired and hungry from his long walk, he eat supper, 
and then retired to his room. Then he counted his money, and found, 
that after paying his hotel bill, he would have just enough left to pay 
his fare home. 

On his way to New York, he had been thinking what kind of a 
present he should bring to Lucy. Well, he could judge best when he 

Vol. X. No. 110. Digitized aiGoOgle 



520 Dead Broke. 

looked about him-; it should be a stunner, anyway, got up, little 
madam, regardless of cost. He was to bring a handsome present to 
Polly Flitters, too ; and then, as for Christmas toys, why, he was to 
bring home a whole boxful, not to speak of a doll that could shut and 
open her eyes, just as well as little Mary herself, and was to be packed 
separately. Yes, a whole boxful, and the boys had bargained that 
they were to be allowed to smash open the box themselyes, and take 
eveiything out of it. During all the journey to New York, those 
little trifles and pleasant anticipations had filled Bobert's mind, just 
as much as more serious thoughts, and now he was going home, 
bringing nothing back with him but his sad news. 

He returned to the office of the hotel. Its noise and bustle helped 
to distract him ; men were playing billiards in the room, and he sat 
looking on, as if interested. At length, happily, nature came to the 
relief of the weary mind and body, his eyes grew heavy, and when he 
went to bed, he fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. 



CHAPTEE XTTT. 

TICKETS ! 

Ths next morning, Eobert M'Gregor left New York. Travelling over 
the Great Western Railroad, through Canada, he crossed over to 
Detroit the following morning. There was a train leaving in half an 

hour, which would pass by P , but he shrank from arriving home 

in the daytime, so he waited for the train that was to leave at four in 

the afternoon, and would arrive at P about eight o'clock in the 

evening. Poor fellow, he was a laggard now, going to that home he 
expected to have hurried to with such joy. 

He had some acquaintances in Detroit, but he avoided the diance 
of meeting with any of them, and remained in the depot building. 
Half-past three brought another train from New York, and the wait- 
ing-rooms became filled with passengers ; so as soon as the train for 

P backed into the depot, Bobert went on board and took his seat 

He could see from the window of ^the car passengers taking a hurried 
limch at the long counter of the refreshment-room. In a short time, 
the car in which he sat became pretty well filled with passengers, and 
two very loud young men, in dress and voice, took ^e seat on the 
other side of the car, opposite to where Bobert sat. 

With an admirable regard for their own comfort, they turned over 
the back of the seat in front of them, thus making a double compart- 
ment, in which they placed coats and satchels to such an extent as to 
leave them its exclusive occupation, and as the car (if one was to judge 
by their swagger and loud talk) seemed to belong to them, and the 

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Dead Broke. 521 

other passengers only riding on sufferance, no one was likely to dispute 
their right. In fact, this arrangement was somewhat necessary for 
the accommodation of a new silk hat, which one of the young gentlemen 
wore on entering the car. This, after preparing a place for it, he care- 
fully took off, and set gently down, substituting in its place a cap, 
which he took out of his pocket. But, though his head was under his 
cap now, it was evident that his mind — ^what little he had of it — f ol- . 
lowed his hat ; he looked at it, rearranged its position, and finally 
threw a white handkerchief lightly over it : he treated it much as a 
fond mother might' treat her child; but here the similitude ends, for 
he was not likely to spoil that hat, by no means; — it was the hat that 
was likely to spoil him. 

«< All aboard !*' says the conductor, walking towards the train. As 
he passes the door of the refreshment-room, he looks in, and repeats, 
«AU aboard!" 

A square-shouldered, warm-dad traveller, standing at the counter, 
turns round, catches the conductor's eye, and raising a glass in his 
hand, beckons to him, but the conductor smiling, shakes his head, and 
again saying, *' All aboard !" takes hold of the iron rail of one of the 
cars, preparatory .to swinging himself on board, when the train is in 
motion. The traveller drinks the contents of his glass, tosses some 
change on the counter, and hurrying out, is just in time to get on the 
platform of the rear car, as the train moves off. '' A touch and go," 
he remarks, as he enters, and takes his seat nearest to the door. 

Sobert's seat is about in the middle of the car. Daylight is fast 
fading away, and the gas is already lighted at the depot, when the 
train, with its ding, dong, dell notice, passes out. 

The train which left on the afternoon of the 24th of December, and 

which was to pass by P , consisted of an unusual number of cars, 

to accommodate aU ^ose hunying to home and friends to spend the 
Christmas ; consequently, it was fully half an hour after the train had 
started before the conductor entered the car where Eobert sat. 

" Tickets !'• 

There was an immediate recourse to pockets and pocket-books. 
Robert M'Gfregor put his hand into his pocket for his ticket, the last 
of a batch he had received in New York ; he could not find it ; con- 
fused and frightened, he was still looking for it when the conductor 
came up to him. " Ticket !" 

^' I fear I have lost my ticket," said Eobert, still continuing to 
search. 

*• Then your fare ; — ^where are you going to ?" 

" I am going to P ," answered Bobert, standing up, and search- 
ing on the seat and floor of the car. '* I paid my fare through from 
New York ; when I left the ferry-boat I had the ticket, but it is gone." 

*' Then your fare, four dollars and seventy-five cents, if you^ease." i ^ 

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522 Dead Broke. 

This conversation had attracted the attention of the passengers in 
Bobert's near neighbourhood, and he felt that they were looking at 
him. A hot glow of shame came to his face. 

The conductor, pulling out his memorandum-book and pencil, re- 
peated, *' Four dollars and seyenty-fiye cents, if you please." 

''Ihaye no money," said Kobert, in a low voice, while beads of 
perspiration stood out on his forehead ; '' but I paid my fare, I assure 
you." 

The scene was now becoming interesting to the passengers, particu- 
larly so to the two young fellows on the opposite side. To see a man 
put off a train on a cold winter's day is perhaps one of the most lively 
incidents that travellers can meet with. It breaks the monotony of a 
journey, incites to general and agreeable conversation, and tends to 
increase feelings of comfort and securiiy. 

As soon as Bobert had told the conductor that he had no money, 
one of the two I have already noticed, said in a stage whisper to his 
friend, •* Dead Broke." 

^' Tes," replied the other, making a slight change in the position 
of the silk hat, '* a dead beat, I should say." 

The words went piercing into the poor gentleman's brain : he rose 
up to resent with a blow the insult given to him, and met cold or 
amused looks on every side. Then the cowardice of poverty shoved 
him back into his seat, for to cause a disturbance, he remembered, 
would be to give a colouring of truth to the words of the well-dressed 
blackguard. 

The conductor turned to where the two friends were so comfortably 
seated, and when they handed their tickets to him, he said, in no 
very pleasant voice : '' You must take your traps out of that seat ; there 
are persons in the next car standing up, and two people can't occupy 
four seats. Then, as he passed on, he said to Eobert quietly : '^ Look 
for your ticket, you may find it by the time I return." 

" What's the row up there, conductor ?" asked the passenger who 
had taken his seat at the end of the car just as the train was leaving. 
"What's up?" 

" A man who has lost his ticket," replied the conductor, " and 
has no money to pay his fare. I believe his story, but my orders are 
stnct.' 

<< Where is he going to P" asked the other. 

*« To the same place you are going," answered the conductor, look- 
at the ticket he had just taken up. 

" To P T said the passenger; "will you stay here for amoment^ 

Cap', until I have a look at him ?" 

*' Very well," replied the conductor, sitting down in the seat the 
other had left. 

Walking up to the end of the car, the passenger remained there 

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Dead Broke. 523 

for a moment, and then turned round and commenced walking 
baek.' 

After the conductor had left him, Bobert made another fruit- 
lesB search for his ticket, and then, with nerves all unstrung, 
and feeling that he was watched from every side, utterly harassed 
and beaten down by the misfortunes, great and smaU, which 
pursued him, he sat with bowed head, waiting for the return of the 
railway officer. Nothing could be more dejected and sad than his 
whole appearance as he sat thus, and in striking contrast was it to the 
self -possessed bearing and well-poised figure of the man approaching. 
But the moment the eyes of the latter rested upon Bobert, an expres- 
sion of amcusement, of joyful recognition, lighted up his face. His 
lips were parted to give utterance to an exclamation of pleasure, but 
with wonderful presence of mind, he checked the impulse, in obe* 
dienoe to the thought that came almost simultaneously with the recog- 
nition. 

"No," he thought, as he hurried past, ''he shall never know I 
was witness to his suffering such humiliation. What can have hap- 
pened to bring him to this ?" 

When he reached to where the conductor was, he caught his arm, 
and the latter felt that every nerve in the body of the man who held 
him was quivering with excitement. " GapV he whispered to the 
officer, " I have travelled three thousand miles to eat my Ohristmas 
dinner with that man. Here, take the fare," and he pulled a handful 
of gold out of his pocket " And Gap', you're a good fellow, and will 
make a kind of apology to him ; tell him it's aU right, just to make 
him feel good, won't you. Cap* ?" 

" Why don't you go and speak to him yourself, sir ?" 

*' Because I don-t wish him to know that I saw him put to shame in 
this way ; he's proud and sensitive, or was ; for I have been away in 
Califomia, and we have not met for years, until I recognised him this 
moment. Oh, don't mind the change ; but just tell him out loud, so 
that all those fellows may hear you, that it's aU right, or something 
of the kind." 

The conductor gave him a pleasant nod, and passed along. Just 
as he got near Bobert, he stooped, and pretended to pick up a ticket. 
'* Here is the ticket, after all," he said, " I am sorry, sir, you should 
have such bother," and he put a check in the band of Boberf s hat. 

With a great sigh of relief the latter looked up. '' Thank, you," 
he said ; *' you have been very kind ;" and the conductor passed on, out 
of the car, to tell the mail agent and baggage-man the strange inci- 
dent he had just witnessed, and the three philosophers — ^for all those 
who are in continual intercourse with the travelling public, become 
philosophical, to a certain extent, not without cause— confessed that 
this matter '' beat them." 

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524 Dead Broke. 

** I have been away in Califomia." These were his words. Yes^ 
it was James Allen, brave, true, energetic, long-wished-f or Jim him- 
self, come back to his friend, sitting in the same car with him, and the 
latter did not know it. 

James, too, was changed, but for the better. He had grown more 
robust, and the promise that his youth had given of great strength, 
was now splendidly developed in his chest and limbs. His hair had 
grown darker and was cut quite short, and he wore a heavy beard ; 
but there were two features unchanged by which he could be easily 
recognised — ^his dear grey eyes and turned up nose. 

When the conductor left him, James Allen changed his position 
slightly, so that he could keep Eobert well in view. " Oh, my poor 
Bobert," he murmured to himself, " what misfortune is it that haa 
overtaken you? How changed, how poverty-stricken he is. Oh, the 
wicked folly of my not writing to know how matters stood with him; 
but I never could imagine that in money affairs he would want my 
help. It's hard to be so near him and not dasp my arms around 
him, but it is for his sake I torture myself. And is this the way we 
meet ? Is this the meeting I have looked forward to with such long- 
ings ? l^o matter, we meet now, not to part again, and if money is his 
only trouble, I can set that all right. He never squandered the means 
his father left him; some villain or villains must have swindled him." 

All this and more he said in broken snatches, sometimes burying 
his face in his hands, and then again peering into the gloom where 
Bobert sat, while hia broad chest rose and fell with the emotion which 
he struggled with. 

When the conductor again came round, James shook his hand 
warmly. '^ You are a first-rate fellow, Cap'," he said ; '' the next 
time I travel with you into Detroit we must have a glass of wine 
together, and get better acquainted. And now I want you to do me 
another little favour." 

" What is it ?*• asked the conductor, laughing. " Do you want to 
pay anyone else's fare ?" 

" 1^0 ; but is the American Hotel still in existence at P ?" 

^* Yes, a bus from it meets this train." 

** Well, will you take these checks, and tell the baggage-master at 

P to send my baggage to the American ; I will walk there myself, 

and do not want to be detained at the depot." The conductor pro- 
mised to do 80, and after chatting for a few minutes with his new 
aoquaintance, again left him to his own thoughts. 

When the train reached P ^ three or four passengers, induding 

Bobert, rose to leave the car ; as they passed out of the door, Bobert 
last, James Allen followed at a little distance, to prevent his being 
noticed by the former, who walked straight on for some time, and 
then turned to the right. James's heart gave a throb of joy. 



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Everyday Thoughts. 325 

'He has the cottage yet/' he said ; " he is going there, thank 
God." 

As Robert M'G^gor neared his home, his steps grew weary and 
slow, and twice he stopped altogether, and put his hand up to his 
head. Each time he did so, James seemed on the point of rushing 
forward, but checked himself in time, to see Bobert resume his slow 
walk ; but when a turn brought Inverness Gottage full in sight, the 
latter^s slow walk was changed almost into a run. 

James, now terribly excited, hurried after, still faster, and lessen- 
ing the distance between them. 

When Bobert reached the gate of the Cottage, James drew up 
beneath the shadow of a tree. He saw his friend enter at the gate, 
and pass up the grayel-walk ; then the hall-door opened, a woman 
came running down to meet him, and a woman's arms were flung 
lovingly aroimd Mb neck. 

The watcher clasped his hands in joy. " Thank Ood ! thank God ! 
oh, thank God I " he murmured; ''here is nothing that I cannot set 
right," and he hurried off in an opposite direction. 

{To he concluded next month.) 



EVEETDAY THOUGHTS. 

BY MBS. VRAJXK FBNTBILL. 

L — Teapots and Kbttlbs* 

THE teapots and kettles of which I am thinking have nothing to do 
with five o'clock tea — ^that delightful modem aid to gossip, which 
has made even morning visits endurable — nor have I in my mind the 
Queen Anne silver teapot which you, my lucky reader, have inherited 
through a long line of grandmothers ; or the yet more precious china 
vessel which now graces your cabinet, and which, while we were still 
drinking mead and sack, may have infused^the souchong of his celestial 
majesty, theEmperorof China. Ah, no Imyteapots and kettles are quite 
different things. The one is generally brown earthenware, chipped or 
cracked, the other is old iron, blackened by use ; yet, such as they are, 
they take the place of household gods in our Irish cabins, and often 
form the beginning and end of their whole *' hattene de euieiney If you 
are on friendly tenns in these cabins, you must have seen, and seen with 
a sigh, the husband's return from work. He comes in, tired, cold, often 

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5^6 Everyday Thoughts. 

wet througli ; and, fliBg:ing his coat and spade into a comer of the 
untidy room, sits down uncomplainingly, to what ? — ^To ill-made bread 
and to something which his wife calls tea, though I fear it never grew 
beneath the sun and dews of China. We are told eveiy day that tea 
contains no nourishment whatever, and no one can suppose that suck 
a meal will restore the strength wasted by long hours of manual 
labour, or give the working man that sense of comfort which our gray 
skies demand. What wonder then that, the cheerless meal over, the 
poor fellow takes up his old hat — he leaves the spade this time — and 
goes forth to seek in the public-house the brightness and wannth which 
are lacking at home P 

And, when he is gone, what does the wife do ? Generally, she sits 
down in that supine content which, as we know, is the grave of all 
reform. If the case be very bad, the kindly creature sheds a few 
tears, as she puts her children to bed ; but more often, leaving the 
cabin in all its untidy discomfort, she flings her shawl over her head, 
and runs out to seek from some other poor wife the sympathy which 
is bom of similar experiences. The two women join in a duet of 
lamentations, each complaining bitterly of her husband's bad conduct ; 
yet, if they but knew it, they themselves are often its chief cause, and 
could easily remedy the evil; for the Irish woman is the hearth-queen 
of her peasant home, its absolute mistress, except when her husband 
is tipsy ; and if he be tipsy so often, the fault is greatly hers. 

It was an Irishman who told our fathers long ago that the 
spirit of chivalry was dead ; but, in spite of Burke's famous saying, I 
do not think it is dead. It may have doffed its plumed helmet, and 
cast aside its golden spurs, but it has only been to put on the frieze coat 
and the brogues of the Irish peasant ; nay, it often hides itself beneath 
the tattered rags and bare feet of the poorest among them ; for who 
that knows them has not been struck by their great courtesy to woman, 
their gentleness and respect for,^her P And in return what does the 
woman do ? 8he is, it is true, the kindest of mothers and the most 
faithful of wives, but she sadly neglects her home, and wastes in idle- 
ness the time she should devote to the comfort of her household. 

The study of housewif ezy and cooking have of late been revived as 
an art. Fashion has been pleased to smile on saucepans and gridirons, 
and Mr. Buckmaster is proving himself a most efficient high priest, so 
that the pretty girls who charm us with their rendering of Mozart and 
Beethoven, or who talk so learnedly of Botticelli and the early 
Florentine masters, have also studied Soyer and Mrs. Beeton, and can 
often turn their knowledge to practical acoount ; but what in them is, 
at most, a useful accomplishment, would be a real virtue in the poor, 
a virtue bringing in its train peace and prosperity, and sweet domestie 
joys. 

Someone, a Frenchman, I think, once boasted that, by regulating 



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Everyday Thoughts. 527 

a man's diet, he could alter not only his temper, his habits, his morals, 
but his very faith ; and, though this would be a horribly realistic 
opinion to hold, it has in it this much of truth'; that the poor man, who 
knows that at home he finds a cheerless meal, an untidy wife, ragged 
children, but too often seeks recreation at the public-house, and thus 
takes the road which leads to degradation and ruin. 

I see, however, a whole regiment of objections, armed cap-a-pie; 
and ready to do battle to my humble little theory. 

*' It is well known,'' I am told, <* that when soldiers fall out of the 
ranks beneath the Indian sun, or when summer tourists are climbing the 
Alpine heights, nothing enables them to endure the fatigue so well, 
or revives them so soon, as tea ; and again, when young men are being 
coached for competitive examinations, they find that tea helps them 
best to get through the long hours of hard study.*' 

All this, of course, is true ; but we must remember that these men 
have plenty of good food besides ; and, no doubt, tea is invaluable as 
a temporary restorative; but is that what the Irish peasant wants? 
Does he not rather require substantial food, which will renew the 
muscles exhausted by daily wear and tear ? 

"Yes, yes," says a practical objector; "but you know how 
wretchedly poor our peasantry are, and where is the money to be found 
to pay for this good food of which you speak ?" 

I think, in answer to this, it is generally acknowledged that the 
working classes of other countries are better fed at much lees expense. 
I do not plead for soup, for I suppose one might as well suggest 
wooden shoes; but there are vegetables, and, on the sea shore, cheap 
fish ; where these are not procurable, there are lentils, and dried peas, 
and rice, with which, and very little meat, savoury food might be pre- 
pared, and would be found more economical than the everlasting tea 
and bread. Even if our people would return to the oatmeal porridge, 
the potatoes and buttermilk of their fathers ! But no, the teapot is at 
hand, and saves a great deal of trouble. " Besides," says Biddy, *\it 
is so convanient, as the boys can have it whenever they come in ;" and 
that, if Biddy could but see it, is the greatest objection of all, for it 
does away with family meals, and with the little daily sacrifices and 
courtesies which do so much to strengthen the family bond. 

I am also told, rather contemptuously, that I am not pleading the 
cause of English chaw-bacons ; that tiie Irishman, quicker witted, 
more imaginative, does not attach the same value to mere material 
comfort ; that he has a soul above cates, if, alas ! not always above ale. 

Ah, my young friend, you little know how much that " material 
comfort," at which you sneer, how much the little virtues of order and 
thrift, have to do with the dramas of life; nay, often, with its saddest 
tragedies. Even you and I, to whom providence gives so many com- 
pensations, find our temper just a little soured if we are kept too long 

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528 ' Twixt Hope and Fear, 

without food, or if our fireside be cheerless, and our meals yeiy badly 
cooked. Then, how much more must those things affect a man who 
works from morning till night ; who has to brave the cold and heat, 
the sunshine and the rain, and who, moreover, has no pleasures except 
those his home can give him. 

Many among us, doubtless, remember Murillo's painting in the 
Louvre, called '^ Le Souper des Anges ;" and those who have seen it 
must, 'I am sure, have turned a second time to admire the quaint and 
charming picture, and it may be, to take to heart the gentle wisdom it 
teaches — and who could teach it better than the great Spaniard whose 
life was a mixture of such homely surroundings and such lofty ideals ? 
Murillo's painting records an incident in the life of St. Diego, a poor 
lay brother, whose daily occupation was preparing the meals of the 
community — and, since he was a saint, we cannot doubt that he went 
heart and soul into his work — ^yet God deemed him worthy to behold 
the glories of heaven, which are hidden from the kings and philosophers 
of the world. And while he is wrapped in ecstasy, who does his lowly 
work? It is the bright spirits of iieaven ; for they are angels who 
stir the soup and attend to the roast, while, in the foreground, little 
child-angels are busy among the vegetables. 

What God's messengers did for San Diego and his oommunity, could 
not our Irishwomen do for their fathers and husbands ? Ah ! if they 
but knew it, they would thus prove themselves true guardian angds, 
and would rescue many a soul from the grasp of the tempting demon, 
who stands waiting for it at the public-house door. 



'TWIXT HOPE AND FEAR. 

BY BUTH o'cONirOB. 

THOU knowest what is best for me. 
My destiny is in thy power ; 
And in this desolated hour 
Gladly I yield myself to Thee. 

Take Thou my heart, so wayward, weak ; 

Bemove its enervating chill ; 

Bend Thou my unrelenting will, 
And teach my lips what they should speak. 

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Michael Blake ^ Bishop of Dromore. 529 

For, oh ! Thou knowest what is best, 
And surely I am still thy childy 
E'en though my struggles have been wild. 

For nowhere have I sought for rest 

But at thy feet. Then guide me on, 

And I will follow with closed eyes. 

And, yielding blindly, deem me wise 
To journey whither I am drawn. 

Thou knowest what is best for me, 

My destiny is in thy power ; 

Thus in this weird, enchanted hour 
I place my hopes, my fears, with Thee. 



ICEOHAEL BLAKE, BISHOP OF DBOMOBE. 

BY THK SDirOB. 

PabtVII. 
Thx preceding instalment of this quasi-biographical sketch, " which 
like a wounded snake drags its alow length along/' consisted of 
extracts from a very terse and business-like diary kept by Dr. Blake, 
during his sojourn in the Eternal City for the purpose of fouuding^or 
ref ounding the Irish College. Before restoring this precious manuscript 
to the venerable hands which kindly entrusted it to ours, let us trans- 
cribe a few other words here and there. In a letter to a pious lady of 
Dublin, MissHackett, he speaks (Oct. 16th, 1825), of the tranquillity of 
mind which he enjoys, and attributes it to the habitual practice of 
meditation and to bis custom of taking all things as coming from God, 
and of referring all to Him. " I then spoke in praise of the Imitation 
of Chriit which has been to me a source of so much comfort, and to 
recommend to her special attention the following chapters : Book L, 
chapters 19, 22, 23, 25 ; Book II., chapters, 3, 4, 6, 10; Book HI., 
chapters, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 22, 23, 26, 27, 29, 
80, 81, 32, 33, 34, 35, 38, 46, 47,49, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58 ; Book IV., 
chapters 2, 9, 10, 11, 12, 15, 18." The special favourites of the holy 
man are so numerous that they have less temptation to be jealous of 
one another. 

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530 Michael Blake, Bishop of Dromore. 

The following passage will interest several besides the author of 
the recently published " History of Lough Derg:"* 

** 1825, April 25. I received to day a letter from the Eight Eev. 
Dr. Keman, dated * Garrickmacross, April 5.' In it he requests that 
I apply to His Eminence Cardinal della Somaglia for a continuance of 
the I ndulgence granted to the Island of Lough Derg, to which hundreds 
of Catholics flock every year with the express permission and approbation 
of their respective pastors and after having complied with their paschal 
duty, in order to do penance and make a retreat of three, six, or nine 
days. The island being the property of a Colonel Leslie, M.P., it is 
feared that, were the station to be suspended for one year, he would 
not allow access to it. The present superior of it is the Eev. Mr. 
Bellew, the Bishop's Yicar-General and Dean of the Chapter of 
Clogher, under whose superintendence it is morally impossible that 
any abuse can happen. The Station commences on the 1st of June 
and terminates on the 15th of August." 

The relations which were afterwards to subsist between Dr. Blake 
and the Diocese of Dromore lend a point to our next extract : — 

" September 26th, 1825. I wrote to the Very Rev. Arthtir M'Ardlo. 
After mentioning that I had received his letter on the 22nd, I informed 
him that I had waited on Monsignor Caprano and made him acquainted 
with the proceedings of the clergy of Dromore for selecting a bishop ; 
and expressed my regret at the circumstance that their postulation could 
not have been forwarded before last Monday, because on that day the 
Congregation held its last sitting previous to the autumn vacation and 
would not reassemble till the 5th of November. I signified the pleasure 
and edification I felt in learning with what exemplary order the clergy 
of Dromore had taken their measures in choosing a new bishop, and 
my confide^t hope that, animated by so good a spirit, they would render 
the duties of their future bishop comparatively easy. I also expressed 
my joy in finding that my old friend, who had taught me to read the 
Divine Office and to perform the ceremonies of the Mass, was one of the 
persons selected by Uiem for the exalted office of their bishop ; and my 
desire to renew the relations of intimacy and friendship which had 
subsisted between us." 

This "old friend" was, we suppose, his correspondent, Dr. 
M'Ardle himself. << Their future bishop !" He did not imagine that 
he himself was to be so at one remove. 

Many enterprises assume forms and lead to results which those 
who carry them on had not at all before their minds when they began. 

* Mr. Aubrey de Vere, in a note to the exquisite Tolume of poetry which he hai 
just deToted to the " Legends of Ireland's Heroic Age," says in reference to Lough 
Derg: '< To this island properly belongs the legend illustrated by Calderon in his 
* Purgatory of St Patrick,' so admirably presented to the Engliah reader by mj 
lamented friend, the late Denis Florence ilac Carthy." 



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Michael BlakCy Bishop of Dromore, 531 

Dr. Blake's original purpose was cliiefly to create at Eome a sort of 
higher " Dunboyne Establishment," where distinguished young Irish 
ecclesiastics, after completing the ordinary course of theology, might 
have additional time to devote to study amidst the advantages to be 
found only in the capital of Christendom. In order to maintain the 
college and to give it a larger population than could be expected to 
be furnished by this chosen band, the original design embraced or very 
soon adopted an arrangement for admitting ecclesiastical tyros also. 
But the young priests who were selected for this honour were natu- 
rally anxious during their sojourn in Eome to see all that could be 
seen, and no doubt imagined (were they wrong ?) that this was the 
l>e6t part of a Eoman education and the only part that was wanting to 
them. They, therefore, declined to bind themselves by the restrictions 
which Dr. Blake, as Bector of the Irish College, wished to impose on 
all his subjects, and accordingly, as early as September Ist, 1827, we 
find Dr. Blake proposing, in a letter to the Archbishop of Dublin, that 
" for the present no yoimg priests be sent here from France, Spain, or 
even Ireland." 

On the 27th of February, 1826, Dr. Blake took possession, at last, 
of the new College given to him by Leo XII., which received its first 
alumni on the 27th of the following October. In memory thereof the 
twenty-seventh day of each month was appointed for the merenda, by 
which name is meant, not what the Latin dictionaries will tell you 9vh 
hoe voce, but the monthly '' outing '' in the country, so necessary to 
break the monotony of student-life. Of the first batch of Irish Roman 
students the only survivors are the Bev. Matthew Collier, P.P. of St. 
Agatha's, Dublin, and the parish priest of Kingstown, Monsignor 
Andrew Quinn, y.Q-., for whom His Holiness Leo XIII. recently made 
affectionate inquiries, remembering him as the fellow-student of his 
youth. The second batch of sixteen who accompanied Dr. Boylan to 
Home in the autumn of 1828 is represented still by Archdeacon Meyler 
of Ferns, and by the Irish historian, Father Charles Patrick Heehan 
of SS. Michael and John's, Dublin. 

We have just named the second Bector of the Irish College at 
Eome. The Kev. Christopher H. Boylan had been appointed professor 
of English Composition and Elocution in Maynooth College, on June 
25th, 1818 ; and in addition the chair of French was given to him in 
1 820. On him the choice of the Irish bishops fell, when they consented 
at last to yield to Dr. Blake's frequent entreaties to be relieved from 
his post at Bome. He had now done the work for which he had been 
sent thither, and his health, especially his nerves, were beginning to 
suffer. The special enterprise which had required his wonderful 
earnestness and fearless persistency in its earlier stages was now suc- 
cessfully started. He mentioned once to Dr. David Moriarty how 
Pope Gregory XYI., then holding some minor office in the Pontifical 

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532 Michael Blake^ Bishop of Dromore. 

court as Gardinal Capellari, embraced him cordially the day he had 
finally succeeded in surmounting all the preliminary difficulties, ad- 
verting to his past troubles by a playful adaptation of Virgil's familiar 

line: — 

** TantaB molis ent Bomanam oondere sedem." 

Dr. Blake left Rome on the 9th October, 1 828. Though many blank 
pages remained in the manuscript book, with its stout leather binding 
and its brass clasps, nothing is added concerning his homeward 
journey and his welcome home to the old coimtry. To the re-establish- 
ment of the Irish College at Bome this book, like the four years of 
which it is the edifying record, adheres with zealous and unswerving 
fidelity. Nothing else is allowed to intrude. '' When a man's heart 
is fixed resolutely on carrying any one point, heayen preserve me from 
opposing that man !" says Lady Oeorgiana Fullerton in one of her 
delightful Talea 

On his return to Ireland Dr. Blake renewed the proposal which he 
had urged upon his archbishop in more than one of his Roman letters, 
namely, that he should be allowed to resign his parish into Br. 
Yore's hands and become chaplain to the Presentation Oonyent in 
Oeorge's-Hill. But neither the humble and much loved Dr. Yore nor 
the good archbishop would permit such an arrangement. 

Soon after, however, St. Andrew's parish became vacant, and as 
there were special difficulties in the post, it was offered to Dr. Blake 
and accepted by him. One of these difficulties regarded the Parochial 
Church. That was the epoch of Catholic Emancipation, and Irish 
Catholics felt that Religion should emerge from the holes and comers 
in which she had lurked. The church (or, as it was called in those 
days, the chapel) of St. Andrew's parish was a miserably inadequate 
edifice in Townsend-street. Unfortunately the late pastor had had 
recourse to patching. Some thousand pounds had been laid out on 
the attempt to repair what was irreparable. The parishioners were 
tired of contributing and did not like to begin over again ; and they 
were, no doubt, many of them, strongly attached to the old place and 
inclined to believe it impossible to pray anywhere else. But their new 
P.P. had the courage which is needed to abandon an untenable posi- 
tion, and that often demands much greater courage than to hold it. 
He boldly determined to give up the old site altogether. He had 
one powerful ally in beating down all opposition. Merrion-square 
was in his parish, and Daniel O'Oonnell was on his side. Time has 
sanctioned the wisdom of his policy in building the Church of St. Andrew 
where it now stands in Westland-row — according to Dr. Moriarty 
" the most capacious, and, with its commodious presbyteries, perhaps 
the largest and most costly ecclesiastical edifice in the kingdom." 
Within one year Dr. Blake's energy had advanced it far to completion; 
but his connection with it was soon to be broken. His first and 

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Michael Blake^ Bishop of Dromore. 533 

perhaps his only sermon within its walls was to be delivered as by a 
stranger, a bishop coming from his diocese to assist in its consecration. 
We shall not, however, accompany Dr. Blake this month to the new 
scene of his labours. When called away, he left St. Andrew's to be 
finished by Dean Meyler. Even [in 1836 the '< Irish Catholic Direc- 
tory" speaks of its completion in the future tense. "This most 
extensive church will be completed for about £16,000, and xuider the 
inspection of the distinguished architect, Mr. James Bolger, is likely 
to become one of the greatest ornaments in this part of the city." 

As we shall next see Michael Blake as Bishop of Dromore, we may 
at present daim for him a share in three great works which have had 
their cradle in Dublin. Throughout the Boman diaiy from which we 
have quoted abundantly, there are constant references to the efforts 
made to expedite the papal confirmation of the rules and constitutions 
of the Irish Sisters of Charity. His first letter to Dr. Murray refers 
to this matter, which however was not settled, in spite of all his effortSi 
before his departure from Bome. Further delays occurred till the year* 
1833, when Dr. Boylan had already been succeeded as Bector by Dr. 
Paul Cullen,* to whose exertions Archbishop Murray, writing to Mrs. 
Aikenhead, from Portobello, on the drd September, 1833, attributes 
their long-desired success. In the convent parlour of St. Joseph's 
Hospital for Children in Temple* street, Dublin, and, no doubt, in the 
other houses of the Sisters of Charity, you wiU see a picture of Pope 
Gregory XVI. affixing his signature to the final confirmation of the 
Constitutions of the Irish Congregation of the Beligious Sisters of 
Charily, 30th August, 1833. 

* The third in succesaioii from Dr. Blake was destined to have a much longer term 
of office than his own immediate successor. When Dr. CuUen was made Archbishop 
of Armagh, in 1850, his pkce was taken by Dr. Tobias Rirbj, now the Bight BeT. 
Biahop of Litta. feliciter regnans. Let us take adrantage of the mention of this 
venerable prelate to quote his opinion of a new book in which many of our readers are 
interested, and of which a notice is giren a little further on among the " New Books " 
of this month, namely, *'A Saint among Saints:" — "The life of your holy pa- 
troness, St. Emmelia, does great credit to the gifted authoress. On reading over the 
first pages it is easy to see that she not only inherits the faith and piety of her illus- 
trious father but also a bright reflection of his poetical genius. I am quite sure that 
her book will do a great deal of good and gire much edification. Oh ! that we had 
many such mothers as St. Bmmelia, who would imitate that robust, vigorous educa- 
tion which she gare to her sons and daughters. The young girls are considered now 
to be well educated in many circles if they can dance, play, and chatter French. In 
the good Catholic times the knowledge and fear of God, the mortification of their 
passions, and the formation of their mind and character, the art of making their own 
clothes and attending to the other household duties, formed the basis of female educa- 
tion. What wonder if it gare us so many Emroelias, Monicas, Elisabeths (of Hun- 
gary and Portugal), Francescas, De Chantals, &c. I think that the effeminate and 
superficial training (it cannot be called education) given to too many of the female youth 
within the last fifty years has greatly contributed to the deterioration of society through- 
out Europe." ^ . 

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534 ^y Friend. 

Still more closely was our holy priest united with the infant Insti- 
tute of Mercy. His claims upon the gratitude of those pious sisters 
are so many that the aim of these memorial notes oblig;es us to devote 
to the enumeration of those claims a larger space than can be devoted 
to the subject at the end of this present chapter. Rdiqua postea — a 
convenient phrase of prorogation which, from perpetual use, was the 
nickname given to a certain Jesuit professor by Dr. Blake's young 
Boman students. So we have been informed by one of them to whom 
we are indebted for more important particulcu*s. ^* The rest hereafter.*^ 



MY FEIEND. 

BY ETHEL TAKE. 



AFBIEND have I. At times we meet 
Where myriads pace the city street — 

Step aside from the stranger throng ; 
Talk for a little — never long. 

Glimpses these of a larger life, 

Gay with laughter and tough with strife. 

Wider sympathies, waning dim, 
Brighten again at sight of him. 

Some of his words have been the seeds, 
Sown in my life, of gentle deeds. 

What shall I say ? He comes to me 
Much as the west wind, fresh and free, 

Blows on a rose-bush, dwelling lone. 
Cramped in a pot of brick or stone. 

Clipped at a foolish owner's will, 
Prisoner of the window-sill. 

But he of friends has goodly store. 
What to him then one friend more ? 

Weill an additional pair of eyes 
That understand and sympaliiise. 

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( 535 ) 



WINGED WOEDS. 

1. Zeal is at once the measure of our love for Gh)d and the reward 
of our fidelity to grace. 

2. Discretion secures the harmony of friendship. 

3. Memory is like the hold of a vessel : nothing is lost in it, though 
our requirements may not be answered upon instant application. 

4. Duty is the highway to heaven. Gh>d awaits us in our duties : 
therefore, we must never say that the least is of no consequence. 
Such sins of omission may frustrate God's designs upon a brother's 
soul or entail the loss of special graces which God meant to bestow 
upon ourselves. 

5. There is no moment in which it is safe to commit sin. 

6. Duty has a patent for invulnerable armour. 

7. life is a cross ; but we should bear its burden more fittingly 
to the measure of a Te Deum than to that of a Miserere — if it were only 
for the thought that our temporary suffering can add to God's etemid 
glory. 

8. A poet lives in airy regions, and as a bird will lightly poise it- 
self upon the slenderest twig, to the wonder of clumsier creatures, so 
will the poetical mind rest and recreate itself in hope so slight as to be 
almost imperceptible to vision less acute. 

9. Pleasures and joys are the flowers we gather in the garden of 
Time. Sorrows and disappointments seem to be its weeds ; but in 
reality these are most precious seeds, which, if rightly set, will bring 
forth fruits of happiness a hundred-fold for eternity. 

10. We are in a great degree our own legislators, framing by our 
present acts the laws that will govern our future. 

11. If we do not look at the things of Time through the medium 
of Eternity, we reverse the glass of Truth and see the eternal things 
through the false medium of Time. 

12. It seems to me that theory without practice is perfectly repre- 
sented by MuriUo's angels — a head supported by wings— merely a 
flying thought that lends no aid to mundane matters. 

13. Each chip by which we can lighten a brother's cross becomes 
a jewel in our own crown. 

14. Life is like a house, where in youth we may view a beautiful 
and ever-changing scene from every window on the basement stozy ; 
gradually, however, time blocks up these windows, and in old age we 
are driven for the only light obtainable to the skylight, a little window 
that looks heavenward from the upper rooms. Alas ! if the accumu- 
lated dust of years cannot be removed* by enfeebled age, which is thus 
doomed to expire in gloom and sadness. 

Vol. X., No. 110. 32 r^r^r-l^^I^ 

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536 The MonKs Prophecy. 

15. Our cowardly efforts to escape pain and hardship often make 
ns feel them the more : as sometimes we do not know how heayilj it 
is raining till we put our umbrella up.* 



THE MONK'S PROPHECY. 

A TALB. 

mB o'bi 
CHAPTER XV. 

▲ OHANOE OF SCENB. 



Nbzt morning Mrs. Bany listened with a troubled face to Sydney's 
accoimt of the preceding evening, and reiterated her warnings to ke^ 
to herself. '' 'T would be a loss to leave," she said, ** and the money 
paid, but I'll ask Miss White what she thinks best to be done : one 
would get as good an advice from her as from the priest." So Sydney 
continued on, spending as little of her time at her lodgings as she 
possibly could. They were becoming every hour more unpleasant ; at 
last no restraint was observed, and the Cosgraves indulged in fierce 
fights in every part of the house. The girl had inherited some of her 
father's temper and defied him, casting into his teeth his own mode of 
action with such rapid eloquence and indomitable spirit that he was 
sometimes mastered. '' Gh>ing to the bad, am I ?" she would say, " if 
I am, I thank you for it. Did you ever show me the difference between 
good and bad? What could I learn from you but to curse and drink 
and fight ? Respect my father and mother V she laughed, scornfully. 
<< No one gets anything without earning it ; and you didn't respect 
your own. I'm out of your power now, and I'll go my own way. If 
the wickedness is in me, 'twas you bred it there ; and I'm only taking 
pattern by my father." 

At length a climax arrived. Mrs. Barry, coming in on Friday 
evening, found matters in such a state that, without waiting for Miss 
White or any other counsellor, she made up her mind that Miss Ormsby 
could stay under that roof no longer. She insisted on bundling up 
all her possessions at once and bringing her to her own humble home. 

* These thougbts are not culled from Tarious authors like preyious instalmeiits of 
the series but come from one contributor, M. B. C, who will forgive us for winding 
up with one of our own. 



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The Monks Prophecy. 537 

" Oh ! Mrs. Barry, what should I have done, only you came in ?" 
said Sydney, drawing a long breath. '* I was frightened out of my 
life, and I wouldn't know where to look for you. Thank GK>d, I am 
out of that dreadful house.'' 

'' You had no business there much longer, dear. 'Twas God drove 
me in just in the nick of time. Sure 'tis to a poor place Pm bringing 
you now, but 'tis safe and honest, and we'll see about us to-morrow. 
I think 'tis the best way for you to stop in the convent for the 
difference." 

'' Don't say anything about to-morrow, Mrs. Barry, keep me until 
Monday. We are to go to the Almshouse on Sunday, you know : I 
have been thinking of it all the week. I am longing to see Miss 
L'Estrange again, and Miss White. I won't be a troubla" 

'' Trouble, dear heart ! — ^little I'd mind your trouble, — ^but my place 
isn't fit for the likes of you — though I had often a nice lodger. We'll 
tell the nuns to-morrow that 'tis better you should stay with them till 
the lady sends for you. You'll soon hear from her, please Ood." 

They were now driving down a narrow road which led along the 
brink of the river. '' We are near home. Miss Sydney," said Mrs. 
Barry, pointing to a neat detached cottage in the distance; — "and 
do you see the church-spire, Miss ? — that's the one by the Almshouse. 
You have only to cross the bridge we left behind us in the street 
beyond, and you'll be at it in no time." 

'* We shan't have far to go on Sunday," answered Sydney. 

" Jim has eveiything like pins and needles, I'U engage," said Mrs. 
Bany. " We must pay the cabman, Miss Sydney ; don't you mind, I'll 
settle with him. My hand to you, he won't bully me out of a half- 
penny more than his due." 

The laundress entered into a war of words with the cabman, which 
ended in a pleasant mutual understanding. The man told her "who- 
ever bought her for a fool would be sometime out of his money !" and 
she told the cabman, that when he wanted to get at the blind side of 
her, he would have to rise a few hours earlier. 

The little cottage was very neat. They went into a tiny hall ; on 
one side was a sitting-room, with a bedroom off it ; on the other was a 
<K>mfortable kitchen with two pockets of rooms inside. There was a 
bright fire in the kitchen, the kettle was singing merrily, and the 
lamp was lighted. 

Mrs. Barry led Sydney into the parlour. The boards were as white as 
soap and water could make them ; there was a table with a scarlet 
and black cloth ; a few chairs, half blinds of muslin on the window, 
over which was suspended a pot with a " Wandering Jew " in it, and 
on the chimney-piece was a magnificent display of paper flowers. 

" Why, this is a dear little place," said Sydney, looking about her, 
and out of the window ; " and everything is so neat." 

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538 The MonKs Prophecy. 

«'Tis all Jhn's doing, he's that tasty," answered Mrs. Bany, 
greatly pleased ; " his pension pays for it We are as snug as we can 
be, praises be to Ood. Take off yonr things now, dear, and come out 
and take a heat of the fire; there's no one to see you, while Pm getting 
the tea." 

After tea, which Mrs. Barry laid out for Sydney in the greatest 
order in her parlour, the girl went again into the kitchen. Mrs. Barrj 
introduced her son Jim, who stood up as erect as if he were on parade, 
giving short, abrupt answers to Sydney's timid remarks. He was a 
fine-looking, handsome fellow, whose appearance of health and strength 
intensified the sad effect of the empty sleeve pinned to his sida After 
a little time they were both more at their ease. Jim was induced to 
take a seat, which he did in the remotest comer possible, and, answer- 
ing Sydney's questions, entertained them with descriptions of foreign 
lands. 

That night Sydney was tucked-in and made comfortable in the 
neat little bedroom inside the parlour, and fell asleep with a greater 
sense of security and peace than she had done since her mothers death. 

She heard tiiem stirring very early in the morning; she jumped 
up, and looked out. The river was flowing by, quivering in the light 
of the yoimg day ; the eastern skies were flushed with crimson ; Jim's 
blackbird, which he had himg outside the door in the warm sun's rays, 
poured out a song of softest melody. Ear off was the sound of the 
awaking diy, and nearer the voices of women down by the river, and 
the plash of the water as they filled their cans. She dressed herself 
with a lighter heart than she had for many a day. She surprised her 
hostess by her early appearance, and, following her directions, set out 
f orjthe nearest church, were she heard Mciss. Breakfast was ready when 
she returned, and immediately after she prepared for school. Mrs. 
Barry was to call for her about three o'clock, and to talk over their new 
arrangements with the nuns. 

The girl walked away very contented : she had the prospect of a 
pleasant day on the morrow, and she was done with the horror of her 
former lodgings. The hours passed as usual. Three o'clock came ; all 
the pupils departed ; but there was no sign of Mrs. Barry. Sydney 
wondered and waited, but at length, when there seemed no hope of 
her coming, she proceeded homewards by herself to the littie cottage. 
To her surprise she found the cottage closed. When she knocked there 
was no answer; but again she remembered that its being shut up was in 
no wise singular. Mrs. Barry and Jim were, of course, gone together 
somewhere to one of her employers. She walked up and down for some 
time ; a woman was passing with a can of water. " A fine evening, 
Miss," she said, pausing to take breath, as Sydney came up. 

" It is a lovely evening, thank (Jod," replied Sydney. " Do you 
think will Mrs. Bmy soon be home ?" 



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The MonVs Prophecy. 539 

"Ah, God be good to us! sure she met with au accideut. Hiss. 
The deceutest poor womau in the world !" 

'^ An accident !" answered Sydney, growing pale ; '* what happened 
ioher?'» 

"Eun over, dear; a carriage knocked her down; and the Loxa 
knows whether she is alive or not" 

" Oh, Mother of God 1" said Sydney, clasping her hands, '' where 
is she ? — where is she gone P" 

'' To the hospital, Miss. They took her to the Mater three or four 
hours ago. I waa the one that Imew her and ran down to give word 
to her son.'* 

Sydney turned away with one thought uppermost : she should see 
her friend, her faithful old guardian. She walked rapidly through 
the crowded streets, heeding nothing or nobody. When weary, and 
out of breath, she arrived at the Mater Miserioordiss Hospital in Eode»- 
street, she found it waa after hours, there was no admittance to be had, 
and she was too timid to press her claims. She learned, however, 
enough about Mrs. Barry's accident to relieve her mind : one leg was 
injured, but there was no fear of any dangerous consequences. The 
gitl left the stately steps of the convent greatly comforted ; but as 
she walked down the streets again, her nerves unstrung by the recent 
shock, a feeling of terror, akin to despair, took possession of her heart. 
What was she to do ? Where was she to go ? The convent was shut 
up. She shuddered at the thought of going back to the Gosgraves ; how 
could she return to Mrs. Barry's ? What was she to do ? " God will 
take care of me," she murmured, " God will take care of me ; I won't 
be afraid. O holy Mother, keep me from being afraid !" Involuntarily 
she turned her steps towards the little cottage. The door was still 
shut. There was no Jim, even, to tell her what to do. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

A HAPPT HAVEN. 

Bunded and dazed, Sydney turned back, and walked on and on till 
she found herself on the bridge that led across to the Almshouse. She 
stopped at the end of it, under the shadow of a solitary tree, to try 
and think what was best to be done. She had no money with her, even 
if she could summon courage to look for lodging, alone and at such an 
hour. She leaned over the parapet and watched the lights reflected 
in the melancholy water, as it lapped and crept sorrowfully about the 
dark arches, so unlike, ^he thought, the bright, dashing, pleasant 
beauty of Poulsnass. Oh, if she were back there with Nellie ! Where 
woTild she go P Not to Mrs. Hassett. She had never come tosee her 

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540 The Monks Prophecy. 

mother, though she knew Bhe was ill ; nor did she come to see her, 
though she must have seen her mother's death in the newspapers. Mrs. 
Barry was particular in haying it published. No, she could not go to 
Mrs. Hassett. She thought, if she had courage, she would go to the 
Almshouse; but how could she simmion courage P She never met them 
but once ; she could not trouble them. She would go into the church 
when the people were all come out ; she would hide in it for the 
night ; she would keep near the altar steps, and be safe : our Lord 
would not let her be afraid. But she remembered, with a sudden 
Tiyidness, all the people that were buried in it, and around it, and 
her heart sank still lower. The tramp, tramp of tiie multitude seeking 
their homes smote upon her ears ; the darkness was falling ; there 
were fewer people passing over the bridge. The girl clasped her 
hands in utter bewilderment. As she stood trembling, with a fright- 
ened, despairing face, she heard rapid footsteps behind her ; and, turn- 
ing her head, expecting some new cause of alarm, she beheld Ida 
L'Estrange coming towards her ; utterly unable to move, she stretched 
out her arms, and, when she came near, clung to her, unable to say a 
word. 

" Tou dreadful girl,'* said Ida, " what a fright you have given us! 
I have been all over the city looking for you ; and Miss White is 
nearly out of her mind." She put her arm roimd Sydney, who, frcHn 
terror and exhaustion, was hardly able to walk, and led her away. 

" Hold up, you foolish little thing ; we are very near home," said 
Ida. '* Miss White is walking up and down, her little heart troubled 
to its very depths. The next comer, and we are all right. There 
now, behold our warlike sentinel ! Here she is, Miss White, the 
stray lamb ; I have captured her at last." 

The little lady put her arms ground Sydney. '' My poor child ! 
my dear girl ! why didn't you come to me P How can I forgive you 
for not coming to me ?" she said, tenderly. " What a day you must 
have had ! " But Sydney could only sob as if her heart would break. 

•*I am sure she is starved as well as terrified," said Ida; "we 
shall feed her first, and scold her after, mammy. There is no comfort 
in abusing an3rthing that is not able to resist you. I would as soon 
beat a feather pillow. Here we are now." They brought in the girl, 
placed her in an arm-chair near a bright fire ; Miss White hurried into 
the kitchen to make tea, with many ejaculations of thanksyving. 
Ida knelt beside her, taking off her hat and gloves. Then Sydney 
dasped her arms about her neck, laid her head upon her shoulder, and 
was gradually soothed by her caresses, and half-tender, half-playfol 
words. 

*' I knew Ood would take care of me," said Sydney, with an ex- 
hausted sob ; " but He was so long coming I nearly despaired." 

'' He is nearest to us when He seems farthest away," said the little 

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The MonKs Prophecy. 54 1 

lady, 88 ahe laid the doth. '' But why didn't you come to me at once, 
dear?" 

" I was ashamed," answered Sydney, " as you knew me so little. 
I was bewildered, and didn't know what to do. Oh, thank Ood, I am 
with you!" 

" There is Jim," exclaimed Ida, as a single knock echoed in the 
haU. *< I'm sure he is in a dreadful way." She jumped up and 
opened the door. '' Here she is, Jim, safe at last. I met her on the 



Jim stepped in and touched his cap. '' Thanks be to God, Miss; 
I have walked from end to end of the dty. I just stepped in to see 
was there any account, before I set out again. Thank the Lord, she 
is safe ! " He wiped his face, on which great drops of perspiration 
were standing. 

'' Oo into the kitchen now, Jim, and you'll have your tea in a 
moment," said Miss White ; *' you had enough of trouble to-day, poor 
fellow." 

While Sydney was trying to eat, in obedience to her two friends, 
she learned how they had been looking for her all oyer the city. 

When Mrs. Barry had been thrown down and injured by a carriage, 
she was taken up almost insensible. She recoyered consciousness 
sufficiently, when they were about to take her to the hospital, to speak 
to one of the bystanders. She asked her for God's sake to send her 
Bon Jim after her to the Hater Misericordin. Jim was at the hospital 
in half an hour after his mother reached it, and to his great relief 
found that she was not seriously injured. She told him to go at once 
to Hiss White, and tell her what happened, and to ask her, for the love 
of God, to look after Miss Ormsby. Jim went away at full speed. He 
called first at the cottage, for it was likely the girl had come home 
from school. He found she had called, and, hearing of the aoddent, 
had run away again. He went then to the Almshouse, hoping she had 
gone there ; but there was no account of her. When he told his story. 
Hiss White dasped her tiny hands, and went out to Ida, who, when 
she heard the story, caught up her hat, that she had just taken off. 
'' Go back to the Hater, Jim," she said ; *' ahe may have gone there ; 
and I'll try the convent." 

And then they went their different ways — ^fruitlesdy, as we know — 
till coming home, after weary searching, Ida's quick eyes discovered 
the poor child on the bridge : and all was well. 

It has been said of old '' a house is as large as the heart of its 
owner ;" and in the tiny almshouses there seemed to - be ample room 
^ one were to judge by their occupant's hospitality. Ida wanted 
Sydney to deep with her. " Your bed, mammy, isn't big enough to 
i^dd yourself and the cat," she said; "mine is of more generous 
dimensions." But Hiss White would not listen to such reasoning, 

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54a The Mmk's Prophecy. 

wd it- ended in a bed being prepared for Sydney on the sofa, where 
she was settled and tucked-in after a most comfortable fashion. When 
Ida stooped to wish her " good-night " she clasped her anna round 
her neck with such touching earnestness that the girl went away with 
tears in her bright eyes. 

When the little lady saw she was becoming sleepy, she blessed and 
kissed her, and went softly up to own room. 

The toUing of the ohuroh bell sent its soft chiming through Sydney's 
morning dreams ; but it was only Miss White's entrance that aroused 
her. '< Oh ! you have been to Mass," said Sydney, *' and I have slept 
it out." 

'*I am glad you have had suoh a rest, dear," answered Miss 
White, kissing her. *^ I will go up stairs now to take off my things; 
and you can follow me to finish your toilet." 

Sydney sprang up, and in a few moments had removed from the 
little sitting-room all traces of the use to which it had been put. The 
little lady smiled pleasantly on her as she ran up and down stairs and 
then descended to prepare breakfast. 

When Sydney followed her, the table was laid, the window was 
open, and a soft breeze, laden with perfume, was lazily swaying the 
muslin curtain. 

" Oh ! I could live here for ever," said Sydney, looking out. " TSs 
beautiful.'' 

" Not for ever, dear," answered Miss White, smiling, " for ever 
is a long word. Little birds will flutter in the prettiest nest and long 
to try their wings. But I hope you will fold diem sometimes beside 
me, and come to see me as often as you can." 

" Indeed I shall," said Sydney ; ^* I cannot tell how grateful I am. 
I am ashamed that I can't speak it." 

'' Hush, my dear ; I know everything you want to say, so you can 
leave it unsaid. You must know, Ida and I took quite a fancy to you 
last Sunday, and we are delighted to haveyoufor a while to ourselves. 
Mrs. Barry was with me on Saturday, before she met with the aoddeat, 
and told us all about you. I am glad you are out of that dreadful 
house. She said you meant to board at the convrait now." 

" She thinks it best I should," replied Sydney. " My poor mother 

just before she " the girl's lips trembled. 

*' Yes my dear, I understand. It was a hard trial, a sad, sad trisl ; 
but Ood is wise and good. You must think of her gain now, not of 
your own loss ; perhaps she is better able to help you in heaven than 
she was on earth : with the vision of faith, my child, we see behind 
the walls of fiesh, where all is peace and beauty. I am no longer a 
little old maid in an almshouse," she continued, smiling brightly, 
'* but a young spirit, clothed in immortal splendour, singing, not in a 
cracked treble, but with a voice of sweetest strength. Isn't that a 



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The Monies Prophecy. 543 

T617 consoling view, dear, and soothing to my vanity when I perceiTe 
myself falling into a ruin ?" 

" I think you are lovely; as you are/' said Sydney, gazing at the 
little lady's sweet, worn face; "I don't want to have you changed at 
aU." 

"I am glad you like me, my dear; 'tis a pleasant thing to be 
liked. I never arrived yet at a holy indifference to affection." 

*' ly^hope you won't become indifferent to me," said Sydney, shyly; 
" I prayed last Sunday that you and Miss L'Estrange would like me." 

" No, my child, I won't become indifferent to you. I won't lose 
sight of you again till you are safe with your friends. But about the 
school, dear ? Are you sure that you don't want some money?" 

'' I have nearly fifty pounds ; Mrs. Barry stitched it into my dress, 
when we were coming away," answered Sydney, laughing. "All 
except a couple of sovereigns and some silver." 

" Who is that talking in such a regal way about gold and silver ?" 
said Ida, entering. " I have such a plethoric purse that I am having 
a pie for dinner; all in honour of Sydney. I may call you Sydney, 
may I not ?" she added, as she kissed her. 

" Oh ! indeed you must," said Sydney. 

'' And I am Ida, remember — Princess Ida, grand, epic and h6mi- 
ddal." 

" Don't be extravagant, Ida, you always want pies when you have 
money ; and you earn it hard, dear," said Miss White. " I fear I 
never shall make you sufficiently economical." 

" Oh, manmiy, you're such a shabby little person, talking of earn- 
ing money on a Sunday. I'm a lily of the field to-day ; I ignore all 
toiling and spinning. The pie exists ; 'tis a splendid fact in my larder, 
and you are to share in it and expand like the veritable Mrs. Pecksniff 
you are." 

" Well, my dear, I suppose I shall have to yield to you," said Miss 
White, looking with great affection on the lovely face of the girl. 
"Everyone gives in to her^ Sydney ; she rules ub all with a rod of 
iron." 

" I am the backbone of the establishment, Sydney," answered Ida, 
"I give an almost masculine flavour to our dovecot; besides, I have 
the instincts of the princess. I ought to be swaying the multitude in- 
stead of goading little children over the scales.'* 

*' Well, there is no knowing what brilliant arena you will have 
yet," said Miss White. " The world is all before you." 

*' But the doors of it are shut, mammy. When shall I break the 
locks of one?" 

" No breaking, my dear ; leave Gk)d to open your way ; you may 
be sure He will do it. Impatience often leads us into the wrong one." 

" I'U be as patient aa Job, mammy ; I have the organs of causality . 

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544 The Monies Prophecy. 

well deyeloped : telesoopic vision that shows me the end of ever so many 
beginnings. I think myself I incline to be too cautious. Sydney here 
lives in' to-day, like the wise little person she is ; I project myself into 
the future. But we are to have a grand walk, Sydney, immediately 
after Mass." 

" Shall we call at the Mater Hospital to ask for dear Mrs. Barry V 
said Sydney. 

*' Yes. of course ; we must see how she is after the night. But I 
must first introduce you to my aimt : she is quite anxious to see our 
stray lamb. Do you think will Sydney impress her favourably, 
mammy?"' 

" I think she will," replied Miss White, smiling ; " Sydney looks 
well-bred." 

" You must know my aunt's speciality is blue blood," said Ida; 
*' she takes enormous satisfaction ibrom a belief that there were 
L'Estranges in the ark." 

** She is prouder now than when she was wealthy and moving in 
the best society," Miss White added. 

" I get impatient sometimes with pictures of our ancient glory," 
said Ida, laughing ; " I scandalise her with'my democratic views." 

"You are too proud to be proud, my dear," said Miss White, 
shaking her head wisely, '* that's about it." 

" I have a kind of pride, I suppose," answered Ida. ** I have an 
intense scorn for scorn. I resent being reflected on because I work 
for an independence, and because I am poor. Labour is noble ; our 
poverty is God's will, why should stupid people, because they are more 
fortunate, look down on us." 

" If fortime entail such a condition of mind, dear, we can't account 
them more fortunate," said Miss White ; ** but it is wiser to keep our 
own eyes lifted heavenward than to be watching the ill-directed eyes 
of others." 

" That is true, little mammy, and perhaps it is wholesome for me to 
get a snub occasionally. Though my first impulse is resentment, I 
offer it up afterwards and try to bear my little wound. I shall be good 
yet, when some of this quick temper dies in me." 

" Ah, Ida, 'tis the strong natures, the ardent tempers that do the 
the great works of the world. 'Tis the steam that, well controlled, 
impels the machinery of life. You have a beautiful temper, my dear; 
you are warm and emotional, but you have possession of yourself. I 
should not like to put out the fire but to make it bum dear." 

'' There is the beU calling out ' bum dear, bum dear,'" said Ida, 
starting up 5 "I must go back for aunt. I shall call in for you after 
Mass, Sydney. Don't let mammy pervert you with any of her pagan 
doctrines until then." 

When the last bell rang, Sidney and Miss White went forth into 

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The McmKs Prophecy. 545 

the finnnj atmospliere, and in a few moments were seated in the 
'^ Lady's pew/' Ida came in wiUilier aunt, and then went as usual up 
to the organ-loft. With a contented and grateful heart the girl knelt 
beside her little friend and returned thanks to Qod for haying raised 
up friends for her in her desolation. 

After Mass Ida called for her, and she was presented to Mrs. 
Huxton, who received her with dignified kindness. Mrs. Huzton was 
a stately, well-preserved-looking old lady, with an air of fashion 
still clinging to her well- worn attire, and a general sort of elaborate- 
ness in* her appearance and manners— a behaviour as if she were 
determined to do credit to her ancestors. Sydney was so evidently a 
gentlewoman that she found immediate favour in her eyes. She 
asked her many questions about her father and mother, to which she 
got satisfactory answers. 

'' Your friends, the MacMahons, my dear, I know who they are 
quite well — a very good family— couldn't be better. Old Mr. Mac- 
Mahon's mother was one of the O'Gradys of Grovelands, an old line 
now almost extinct. I can daim kinship with the O'Gradys: my 
grandfather was married, a second time, to Maxy O'Ghrady of Cooga. 
But those times are passed away, child." 

" Well, aunt, I rejoice I'm not my glorious and immortal grand- 
pkre or Mary O'Ghrady his keeper ; a live ass is better than a dead lion. 
Ida L'Estrange, music-teacher, and Sydney Ormsby, stray lamb, are 
more powerful in the flesh now than the Queen of Saba, and more 
bewitching than Mary of Scotland ; are we not, Sydney ? — handsome, 
healthy, and with large appetites for luncheon. Come out to my pantry ; 
— delays are dangerous." 

The two girls went into the little kitchen; Ida spread a 
napkin on the white table, laid the bread and butter and a pot of 
jam on it, and they quickly disposed of their luncheon. Ida then 
took up a little ketUe she had laid on the fire, made a cup of tea in 
a tiny tea-pot, put a small cosy over it, poured a spoonful of cream 
into a tea-cup and laid it on the table. 

" Now, aunt," she said, '* have your cup of tea when you think it 
is ready. Sydney and I shall be off ; we shall not be back Ull half -past 
five. Mrs. Baker will be in to boil the potatoes, and Miss White will 
come to help you to prepare for entertaining us properly. Be veiy 
particular, for your guests are distinguished and accustomed to con- 
sideration." 

{To he eotUmued.) 



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( 546 ) 



DEWDEOP AND EOSE. 

ABOSE 'mid leayes in yerdant dress 
Shed forth its radiant summer bloom, 
Nor dreamt that nigh its loreliness 
Oould sweep the breath of wintry gloom. 

And round that peerless budding rose 
A thousand flowerets humbly bent, 

And hailed her Queen of all that grows» 
In fragrance mute yet eloquent. 

Then came a drop of silvery dew, 
Andy perching on that crimson leaf, 

From out its diamond bosom drew 
A crystal tear of hopeless grief. 

" I've lived for thee," the dewdrop sighed, 
" Since waning sunbeams brought me forth* 

Ah I would that loveless I had died 
In that same hour which gave me birth. 

*' For then 1 had not seen thee loved 

By golden com and purple vine, 
Kor felt how little thou art moved 

By love from lowly heart like mine. 

** For tulip tall and Hly fair, 
Sweet violets hid in leafy bowers. 

And primrose pale and oistus rare. 
Salute thee as the Queen of Flowers. 

''And while those beauteous lovers swell 
Thy worship's strain in fragrant sigh, 

'Tis left me but my love to tell 
In mute despair, and then to die." 

And when Aurora's golden sheen 

Had parched that drop of silvery dew, 

It died upon its floral queen — 

True whilst in life, in death still true. 

D. 



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( 547 ) 



NEW BOOKS. 

I. A Saint amon^ Saints : Sieteh of the Life of St. Emmelia, Mother of St. 
Baeil By S. M. 8. (Dublin : M. H. GiU & Son, 1882.) 

This is certainly one of the most attractive Lives of the Saints that we 
have met with, even in these days when pious works seem to vie with 
novels in interest and picturesqueness. It has all the charm of modem 
fiction, and much of the grand simplicity of the age to which its story 
belongs : an age in which, as the author says, '* lives were so calm, 
though spent in troublous times ; so roomy, though so full of work ; so 
free from haste, excitement, fuss." Saint Emmelia, though a saint, the 
wife and mother of saints, seems but little known ; and many, even 
among those who bear her name, have only a vague idea of her life. 
To them, therefore, this account of their patroness will be doubly 
welcome ; but everyone will be anxious to read it when told that the 
modest initials, S. M. S., conceal the name of the gifted daughter of 
the poet whom Irishmen, and many besides Irishmen, are now com- 
bining to honour. Specially charming is the description of Saint 
Emmelia's family life. The authoress brings vividly before us the 
picture of the Oappadocian household, with its sweet routine of prayer 
and work, its large-handed charity, its perfect domestic love. No more 
fitting book could be put in the hands of yoimg girls just entering the 
world ; and in these days especially, when so many women are athirst 
with the craving for notoriety, it would be well if our wives and 
daughters took to heart the lessons taught by these heroines of the 
early Church. They were imseen, unknown, unheard of beyond their 
homes ; yet, standing in the shade which their humility loved, they 
forged the arms and moulded the shields with which their sons went 
forth to ooDquer the pagan world. 

n. The Life of St. Lewie Bertrand, Friar Preacher of the Order of St. 

Dominic By Father Bertraitd Wilbsbforce, of the same Order. 

(London : Bums & Oates, 1882.) 
The ninth of last October was the three hundredth anniversary of the 
death of St. Lewis Bertrand, the Apostle of New Granada. IQs Eng- 
lish confrere and namesake intended the present work as a homage to 
the third centenary of his patron ; but, as often happens in sublunary 
arrangements — those especially, perhaps, in which printer's ink is 
concerned — ^what was meant to appear on a certain date was just a 
little late for it. But this Life of St. Lewis Bertrand, the first that 
has appeared in English, is welcome at any time. The author is the 
son of Henry William Wilberforce, the founder of the Weekly 
Rs^ifter^ which has recently taken out a new lease of life '' renewable 

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548 New Books. 

iot ever.'* Much diligence and loving care have manifestly been ex- 
pended on every part of this book in its substance and in its foiin« 
Biography has never been cultivated more zealously or with greater 
taste and skill than in our own day ; and it would be a pity and a 
shameful scandal if the very eommonplaoe, and very often highly 
unsatisfactory heroes of the world, were to have their careers set forth 
in such attractive guise, while clumsiness and dryness should charac- 
terise the lives of the saints. No doubt a great deal of our complaints 
in this matter arises from our unsaintliness and our want of intelligent 
sympathy with the saints. '*A fellow-feeling makes us wondrous 
kind ;" and it is extraordinary (yet is it extraordinary?) how details 
about places and persons that would otherwise seem to us flat and un- 
profitable brighten up with a new charm when, perhaps, accidental 
circumstances lend to those places and persons some special and indi- 
vidual interest. Let us try to establish these personal and confiden- 
tial relations with the blessed saints of God : with some of them, at 
least, the saints of our predilection. It wiU not be Father Bertrand 
Wilberforce's fault if 8t Lewis Bertrand be not henceforth for many 
a cherished friend and trusted patron. 

m. Hymn9 of the Sacred Heart, adapted to original and selected 
Melodies. By Eleaitob 0. Dosvelly. (Philadelphia.) 
These hymns are adapted to well-known simple and pleasing 
melodies by popular composers, and have (with the original words) 
been taught for years in schools. In their present form they will most 
likely be acceptable to many for their easy, flowing tunefulness, and 
will also probably remind some ladies (a few perhaps painfully) of 
their early vocal efforts and trials. 

We are sorry the authoress has united her devotional lines, " Heart 
of Jesus" (No. 3), to an Italian air, which is objectionable on account 
of its waltz measure, while also accenting the words throughout incor- 
rectly. No. 6, also, " Behold how we've pierced Thee " is unhappily 
united to the much hackneyed '' Alice, where art thou ?" We must say, 
with regard to this hymn, that Miss Donnelly's words are rather a 
misfit to the air, and in the line '* Thine eternal Bride" it would 
decidedly be better to sing the three notes C. B, A. to " Thine,^* so as 
to accent *' eternal^' correctly in the next bar. 

The practice of adapting sacred words to favourite secular melodies, 
be they ever so " sweetly pretiy," is one to be discouraged, and we 
shall certainly protest against it. Some of these airs are original and 
do not come under this ban. The hymns themselves are all sweet and 
holy, and we trust they will warm the devotion of many hearts. 

IV. Half-hours with the Saints and Servants of God, By Chablss 
KEimY. (London : Bums and Gates. 1882.) 
Pive hundred excellently printed pages of extracts from the writ- 
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New Books. 549 

ings of saints and holy men of all ages ought to form a most edifying 
and delightful volume ; but it is impossible to examine this book with- 
out beginning one's notice by expressing vexation and regret that so 
good a design should be spoiled by careless execution. The Provost 
of the London Oratory, who, as the successor of Father Faber and 
Fathex Dalgaims, must be a good judge of literary excellence, con- 
cludes his brief preface with the words : " The long experience of Mr. 
Charles Kenny is a guarantee for the literary excellence of the book." 
Why, then, do we meet constantly such literary excellences as the 
following in page 240 ? '' They compared him to the celebrated ancient 
orators, and was unsurpassed by any of the holy Fathers. " There are 
other indefensible sentences in that same page which ends as follows : 
" It is that vice which sharpens the swords, with which men kill each 
other, that brothers no longer recognise their own flesh and blood, 
that parents and children stifle the best feelings that nature implants 
in them.** The note on P^re Lejeune, at p. 256, says : '' It was through 
the reading of his sermons that induced the recently canonised Bene- 
dict Labre to devote his whole life to silent prayer and meditation." 
It is a great pity that the compiler did not ask someone to do for him, 
before he went to press, what he asks his readers to do now with a 
view to a possible second edition, namely, to suggest improvements 
and point out errors. One obvious suggestion which any ** candid 
friend " would be sure to make is that the author who is chiefly fol- 
lowed, Father Vincent Houdry, S.J., wrote in French, whereas the 
present work is supposed to be written in English. Why, then, does 
Mr. Kenny persist in calling the famous Italian Jesuit " P^re Segneri?" 
The author of '' Christian and Religious Perfection " has here for his 
baptismal name *' Alphonse " and he is sometimes further disguised as 
" P^re A. Eodriguez/' In page 416 we are allowed to choose between 
Asterius and Ast^re. In a dozen other places the Saint gets only his 
French name. But how could a martyr of Diocletian have such an alias ? 
Mr. Kenny might as well speak of " St. Peter or Pierre." In one 
place we have such bad French as Dtscoura Ghretiennes, and in another 
place such good French as this : '' Is it that you know not that not a 
single hair can fall off without his approval ?" This touching fidelity 
to the idiom of the original does not account for the preposition 
in '* St. Thomas o/ Aquinas," and "St. (Jregory q/'Nazianzen," nor for 
the ablative case in which St. Eusebia finds herself in page 3 as the 
subject of an English sentence. 

A writer in the IriBh Times made lately the astounding statement 
that D. F. MacCarthy's " Calderon" was one of the few works of our 
oentury that had received the honour of being translated into Spanish ! 
If a similar fate befell these translations from Houdry, what French or 
what Latin would be found for the statement that ** Jaques («iV) Biroat 
entered into the Company of the Society of Jestis ? " 

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550 New Books. 

These may seem to be small points, but when a proof-reading eje 
detects such blemishes eyeiywhere in so well-meant and so hand« 
somely printed a book, the owner of the aforesaid eye is bound to yield 
to the entreaties of the author, who ends his preface by saying that he 
** will be grateful for any suggested improvements and any notifica- 
tion of errors, &c. &c., so that if a second edition should be called for, 
additions and alterations can be made." 

Under the shelter of that '' &c. &c.," we may express our surprise 
that the only extracts added by the translator are a few not very 
happily chosen specimens from Father Frederic Faber. Why not at 
least Cardinal Kewman and the gifted man mentioned in the dedica- 
tion, Father Dalgaims ? Why not Landriot and Lacordaire ? As the 
collection now stands, the brilliant English Oratorian has the air of 
an interloper. 

A much less extensive collection of extracts from the writings of 
the ancient Fathers and more modem saints and holy writers, trans- 
lated with loving care, would be an exquisite work ; but to do it at all 
worthily great patience and skill would be needed, and almost genius. 
Far less than genius would have contented us in the present work. 
We think it our duty to add that no mere correction of misprints and 
gross blunders, such as we could point out by the hundred, would 
make the book fairly worthy of its name and of the pains that printers 
and publishers have expended upon it. The passages that we have 
examined here and there contain worse than slip-shod translation like 
the following from page 257 " [Enmities] descend from father to 
son, from generation to generation, and a wretched, miserable misun- 
derstanding, which, though small at its birth, grows and grows, and 
descends by degrees to the end of ages." Miserable indeed is this 
''misunderstanding" which has not even a verb to depend upon. Buthow 
does this ungrammatical '* misunderstanding" '' descend by degrees to 
the end of ages?" Let us *' descend by degrees " and by two flights 
of stairs to the library, and see whether the Blind Father* himself 
can throw any light on the subject. In spite of the vague reference, 
** Sermons, vol. v.," which is of no avail with a three-volume edition 
especially, we have had the luck to alight upon the passage in the 
discourse DeB Itiimiiiei, which is Sermon XI. of Part 71. of Sermons 
on the Commandments (page 535 of Tom. Y. of Migne^s <' Orateurs 
Saor^s"). The puzzling piece of grammar has no representative what- 
ever in the original. Here are some of the words which are partially 
represented in page 257 of **Half Hours with the Saints." "Vous 
communiquez k vos enfants vos haines et animosit^s, vous en parlei 
en leur presence: XTn tel est cause de notre ruine^ c'est I'ennemi de 
notre maison. Ces petites creatures, entendant ces paroles, prennent 

♦ P^ ]>jeun© lost his sight at 33 years of age. Yet he worked ms a missioiiaiT 
preacher till he was 00 and preached on tUl near his deaths in his 80th year. 

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New Books. 55 1 

par oontagioxi la trempe de vos paasions : & peine out-ils reQu la vie 
temporelle de Toas que vous influez et inspirez k leurs dmes des dispo- 
BitionB h» la mort ^temelle." This is flattened in English by being 
changed from the second to the third person ; *' these little creatures'' 
become merely '' young children/' and the concluding words are trans- 
lated thus : *' scarcely have they arriyed to man's estate, than they 
have imbibed through those bad discourses dispositions which wiU lead 
fhem to perdition." '^ Scarcely than" — as if it were '' no sooner than"—* 
is a yenial offence compared with mistaking a baby in arms for a person 
arrived at man's estate. ' ' Scarcely have they received from you temporal 
life when you influence and inspire their souls with dispositions that lead 
towards eternal death." And then comes one of Father Lejeune's runv^^^t 
which the translator passes over, and which ought, I think, to precede 
the sentence we have quoted : '* Petit gargon, je ne veuz point que vous 
hanties votre cousin un tel ; vous aurez le fouet, si vous entrez jamais 
dans la maison de votre oncle, il nous a trop d^soblig^s." Of course, 
in a compilation like the present, judicious excisions must be made ; 
but does this specimen brick, for instance, give the reader any fitting 
idea of the beauty of the temple which L^AvmgU raised to the greater 
glory of God? 

Y. Leetures and JDUeourBes. By the Bight Bev. J. L. Spaldino, D.D., 
Bishop of Peoria. (New York : Catholic Publication Society. 
Dublin : M. H. Gill & Son. 1882.) 

Bishop Spalding is, if we mistake not, nephew of the late Arch- 
bishop of Baltimore, whose " Life " he has written. His other works 
are '* The Beligious Mission of the Irish People and Catholic Coloni- 
sation/' and a volume of '' Essays and Reviews." Dr. Spalding is a 
solid thinker and a correct and vigorous writer. He understands well 
the tone of the American mind, and he writes for those whom he 
knows; but there is a large dass at home who would profit by 
his works if they would but read them. When we say that the treat- 
ment is not beneath the dignity of the subjects, it will be only neces- 
sary to mention that the subjects discussed in these finely printed 
pages are Beligious Indifference, Beligious Faith and Physicid Science, 
God and Christ, the Catholic Church, the Catholic Priesthood, the 
Primacy and Infallibility of the Pope, Catholic Worship, the Virgin 
Mother, Catholic Charity, the Catholic Church and the Christian Beli- 
gion, the Bise of Protestantism, and the Decline of Protestantism. 

VI. Euwif% on Variom Subjects, chiefly Bomm. By Monsionor Seton, 
D.D. (New York : Catholic Publication Society. Dublin : M. 
H.GiU&Son. 1882.) 

This is another product of the press which Catholic America owes 
chiefly to the zeal of Father Isaac Hecker, of the Paulist Congregation, 

YOL. X., No. 110. Digitized by G?)Ogle 



552 New Books. 

and which seems almost to monopolise the publication of Oatholic 
books in the United States. The author is a kinsman of the celebrated 
conyert lady who founded the Sisters of Charity in America. Dr. 
Seton's book is of a different character from that of the Bishop of 
Peoria which we have just recommended to our readers : it is the work 
not so much of a theologian as of a Catholic antiquarian. A scholarly 
tone pervades the work which is the final result of many a delighifid 
hour of quiet study and curious exploration amidst the libraries and 
ruins of Bome. Great familiarity is also displayed with classical litera- 
ture and antiquities. The Essays, which are reprinted chiefly from 
The Catholic World, treat of the F^se and Poetry of Ancient Music, 
Italian Commerce in the Middle Ages, Scanderbeg, Yittoria Colonna, 
the Jews in Bome, Early Persecutions of the Christians, the First 
Jubilee, the Charities of Eome, the Apostolic Mission to Chili, the 
Palatine Prelates of Eome, the Cardinalate, and Papal Elections. 

VII. Duffy's Weekly Volume of Catholic Divinity. (Dublin: James 
Duffy & Sons. 1882.) 

This is a reissue of very cheap books of piety which must have 
done a vast amount of good since the very remote epoch at which the 
present writer, with the accumulation of several week's pocket-money 
(which was scarce ini those days), bought the two or three first numbers 
of the series on their first appearance. Most of them are now merely 
reprinted, such as the '' Little Carden of Eoses," by Thomas a Kempis, 
the '' Exclamations of the Soul to Cod," by St Teresa, &o. But in 
this new edition some of the little paper-covered books have evid^iUy 
been revised with great care. This is particularly true of the life <rf 
St. Francis of Assisi. Father C. P. Meehan, whose name appears as 
Censor, has, we shrewdly suspect, taken a broad view of the duties of 
censorship, and re-written the sketch, besides adding much interesting 
matter about the history of the Franciscans, especially in Ireland, and 
their connection with literature. The praises which Dante gives the 
Seraphic Saint are quoted at full leng^. Its Franciscan authorship 
furnishes an excuse for citing the '^ Stabat Mater,'' with a translation 
introduced by these words : *•* The subjoined version was made by the 
late Denis Florence Mac Carthy, for whose eternal repose the reader 
will pray our merciful GK)d and his Blessed Mother." 

VnL Solid Virtue: or a Treatise on the Obstacles to Solid Virtue^ the 
means of acquiring it, and motives for practisitig it. By the Bev. 
Father Bellbcixts, S.J. London : R. Washboume. 1882.) 

This is a new and improved edition of the translation of this 
well-known work made by an Ursuline of Thurles, whose Archbidiop, 
"Dt. Croke, has prefixed a few vigorous words of recommendation. Space 
might veiy well have been spared for a brief account of the author. The 

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New Books. 553 

ordinary reader will not be able to guess when or where he liyed and 
worked. There is a sort of ingratitude in not f urmshing these parti- 
culars about the authors of works which have proTed themselyes the 
" fittest " by their very " survival." If we had any fault to find with 
the present issue of " Solid Virtue/' it would take the form of a com- 
pliment as well as a complaint ; we should complain that its material 
get-up suits its name too aptly, it is too solid. A cheaper form and a 
closer and smaller type would still have left it readable. But old eyes 
will not consider this fine large typography a fault. 

IX. The Lifi of St. Philip Neri^ Apwile of Rome. By Alfonso Cafbos- 
I.ATB0. Translated by Thomas Aldbb Pops, of the Oratoiy. 
(London : Bums & Dates. 1882.) 

Happy the son who is able to perform such an act of filial piety as 
Father Pope of the Birmingham Oratory has performed towards his 
Founder and Father in these two elegant volumes. Among the 8aint*s 
largest accessions of '' accidental gloiy " we may surely reckon his 
good fortune in securing in England such illustrious disciples as Frederic 
William Faber and John Henry Newman. The former naturally 
did all that he could for St. Philip in his *' Lives of Modem Saints." 
But the Italian Life translated in that series belonged to a bygone age. 
'' Soyons de notre si^de " is a maxim which has its tmth and wisdom^ 
even as regards the prevailing taste in spiritual reading. The most 
disting^hed Italian Oratorian, who has been appointed by the present 
Pope Archbishop of Capua, felt that St. Philip needed to be introduced 
anew to readers of the present day, whose tastes are not satLsfied 
by Bacci's way of writing biography. He has executed his task with 
consummate skill and success ; and the task of his English translator, 
hardly less difficult, has been achieved in a manner fully worthy of 
the original. 

A writer in our own pages (Irish |Monthly, vol. iv., p. 660) at- 
tempted an enumeration of the books dedicated to Dr. Newman as we 
called him then. Amongst the dedicators were named Cardinal Man- 
ning, Father Faber, Aubrey de Vere, the Rev. Charles Qarside, J. 3f. 
Capes, and John Charles Earle. Eugene O'Cuny might have been 
added, whose dedication of his *' Lectures on the Manuscript Materials 
of Irish History " to the first Rector of the Catholic University of 
Ireland was far more than an empty or arbitrary compliment, was a 
sincere expression of gratitude to one who was " more Irish than the 
Irish themselves " in his encouragement of Celtic studies. The dedica- 
tion of this noble <' Life of St. Philip Neri '* runs thus : " To the Most 
Eminent and Most Beverend John Henry Newman, D.D., Cardinal of 
the Holy Eoman Church by the title of S. GKorgio in Yelabro, and Supe- 
rior of the Birmingham Oratoiy, this translation of the Life of the 
dear Father whose Institute it has been given him to plant in England, 

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554 ^^^ Books. 

and to tend these many years, written^by one whose genius and virtnes 
are the consolation of the Oratoiy in Italy, is, with his penmssion^ 
and with profound veneration, inscribed by his affectionate son in S. 
Philip, the Translator." 

One of the points in which this work differs from GraUonio and 
Bacoi is that the man is brought out as well as the saint. The Orato- 
rian Archbishop tells us that he has '* tried to enter more fully than 
has yet been done into the soul of St. Philip and set forth its natural 
beauty as well as its supernatural, and the exquisite blending and 
harmony of nature and of grace in it." He has tried, and certainly 
not in vain. Nothing has been omitted that might tend to set forth 
the saint's character in all its various attractiveness. There is a cer- 
tain fitness in having his stoiy invested with so much of a literary 
charm : for he was a poet>— ^^ 0^ in Jrcadid, Some of hiB Italian poetry 
is given by Father Pope in his appendix with the following note : 
''For this graceful translation of the two preceding sonnets I am 
indebted to my dear friend and brother in 8. Philip, Father Henry 
Ignatius Dudley Byder of the Birmingham Oratory." Let this fraternal 
greeting serve as a hyphen or trait tPunian linking these two holy and 
delightful volumes with a single volume of smaller size,* which is just 
83 holy and as delightful, and which, though written at Edgbaston, is 
publiidied in Dublin. This droumstanoe will not prej udice our readers 
against it, however the English critics may be affected thereby. 

X. A Bird's Eye View of Irish History. By Sie Chaeles Gavan Duffy, 
K.C.M.G. (Dublin : James Duffy & Sons. 1882.) 
This is much more and much better than a separate reprint of the 
chapter of Sir G. O. Duffy's "Young Ireland'' bearing the same 
title. That famous chapter has already been published separately in 
France under the title '' Histoire d'Irlande k Vol d'Oiseau ;" and it 
was singled out for special notice as a brilliant and powerful resume of 
Ireland's story by the Spectator, Contemporary Review, and other 
Ijjffgliah critics. Many urged that it would be even more effective if 
detadied from the volimie of vivid personal reminiscences, amongst 
whidi, if it had not been so very good, it might have been considered an 
intrusion, and of greater length than artistic proportion permitted. 
Amongst those who made this suggestion was Dr. Donnelly, Bishop 
of Clogher, whose fine Cathedral rises beside the town of Monaghan, 
in which visitors are already beginning to ask, *' Show me the house 
where Ghivan Duffy was bom." This is why Monaghan is tacked on 
rather awkwardly to the Bishop's see before the foUowing Dedication. 
«I desire, my dear Lord, to associate this little book with your honoured 
name, because its appearance in its present shape is largely owing to 
suggestions which you were good enough to make to me on lite eubj eot ; 

* Cor reffiew of Father Bjder'i Poems must be postponed till next month. 

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New Books. 555 

and still more, because your fruitful life and labours are devoted t<i 
the well-remembered places where I first 'studied Irish History, and 
gathered the traditions and memories which interpret the past better 
than the historian." 

As we haye said, Sir Oharles has in this small quarto enlarged and 
perfected his sketch of Irish History. Those who read it will be 
allured to further study of the subject. It is the latest addition made to 
Irish literature by Thomas Davis's colleague, who gave us nearly 
forty years ago " The Spirit of the Nation " and " The Ballad Poetry 
of Ireland." . And his work is not over yet, 

IX. TKb Oommtrcial Rettrainti of Ireland^ comidersd in a serus of Letters 
to a Noble Lord^ containing an Sietorieal Account of the Affaire of 
that Kingdom, by John Helt Hutghinson, Frovoet of IVinity OoU 
lege, ^e. lie-edited with a Sketch of the Author's Life, Iniroduetionf 
Notes, and Index, by W. 6. Gabboll, M JL., SS. Bride's and Michael 
UPoVs, Dublin. (DubUn: M. H. Oill & Son, 1882). 

A service of no mean order is undoubtedly rendered to students of 
Irish history as well as to the people of this country generally, by the 
republication of works relating to Ireland which, once well known 
and still oftentimes quoted, have nevertheless become so scarce as to 
be no longer procurable except by rare good fortune or at a consider- 
able expense. When some twenty years ago Mr. Alexander Thorn 
reprinted a collection of Tracts and Treatises illustrative of the natu- 
ral history, the antiquities, and the political and social state of this 
kingdom (1613-1769), a thoroughly appreciated boon was conferred 
on readers who could have had no opportunity of hunting after lost 
or forgotten works of long ago. Becently, under the editorship of 
Ifr. J. T. Gilbert and Father Hogan respectively, important contribu- 
tions to the terrible and eventful story of Ireland in the 17th century 
have been reissued ; and now we gladly greet ihe volume before us 
as appearing at an opportune moment to lengthen the list of our obli- 
gations to native scholars and native publishers. 

This volume is in itself a treasure of information, for, besides the 
famous series of letters on the '* Commercial Eestrictions of Ireland,'' 
it contains a very instructive introduction ; an interesting sketch of 
the Hely Hutchinson family ; footnotes copious and valuable ; lists of 
the Irish Chancellors and the Speakers of the Irish House of Com- 
mons since the Restoration ; and lastly the names and period of office 
of the eighty Chief Secretaries to Lord Lieutenants who from 1 703 to 
1880 were " mainly entrusted with the government of the country," 
although with very few exceptions they neither belonged to Ireland 
nor '' had any real knowledge of its condition and requirements.'' 

Moreover, the editor's running commentaries on events and situa- 
tions, and his way of illustrating the present by aid of Hght b<»Towed f 

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55^ New Books. 

Irom the past, impart a peculiar raciness to his pages, and quicken the 
reader's intelligence considerably ; while the excellent style in which 
the book is brought out adds much to the pleasure of its perusaL 

The provost's little volume created a sensation on its first appear- 
ance, and has exercised a salutary influence even to the present day. 
It has been asserted that the book was burned by the common hang- 
man, thus suffering the fate and sharing the glory of other produc- 
tions considered dangerously able and uncomfortably true. The Bev. 
Mr. Carroll seems satisfied to take this for granted, and to believe that 
the copies were so effectually destroyed that the libraries of all the 
three branches of the legislature could not produce one. We confess 
to entertaining grave historic doubts on this point, and we should 
have wished to hear more thereanent from the well informed editor. 
Can he or anyone tell who ordered the execution, or indicate when 
and where it took place ? Lord Lieutenant Buckinghamshire could 
not have condemned a treatise composed at his own request The 
Irish Parliament, resolutely bent on obtaining free trade, would have 
been more likely to order tiie provost's periods to be printed in letters 
of gold. No public body in Ireland would have done anything but 
applaud the work and its author. Even the British Parliament could 
not have sentenced the book that advocated so powerfully the removal 
of commercial disabilities ; for, within a few months from the date 
of its publication, an act was passed by the said parliament granting 
the free trade demanded by Ireland. In fact there was no one to 
bum the book, as far as we can see, unless some British traders, or 
the common hangman himself, imdertook the responsibility of a 
private auto dafe. 

Copies of die original edition are scarce, but not unprocurable, 
even at the present day. The Boyal Irish Academy, the National 
Library, and the Bang's Inn's Library possess each a copy ; and now, 
as we write, a copy lies open before us, obligingly lent by a friend. 
A note in manuscript on the back of the title of this copy, quotes the 
words of Henry Flood in reference to the book, thus : ** If there were 
but two copies of this book in the world, I would give a thousand 
pounds for one." This hardly means that a single copy could not be 
procured at that time. 

For all these reasons we are inclined to think that the story of the 
burning had its origin in a misprint ; or that it might be traced to the 
mistake of a careless speaker who confused Hutchinson with Moly- 
neux— the *' Commercial Eestraints" with the ** Case of Ireland." 

Should a second edition of the reprint be called for, we would 
suggest the supplying of two or three omissions. For instance, the 
original title-page and the author's Address to the Header ought not 
to be left out. In fact, reissues of such important works should ap- 
pear as mudi as possible in facsimile. 

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New Books. 557 

Provost Hutchinson rendered good service to Ireland in many ways. 
It must not be forgotten that he was a staunch, friend to his Catholic 
fellow-countrymen; was anxious that they should enjoy complete 
equality in tiie Uniyersity ; and advocated their emancipation at a 
time when "patriots" like Lord Charlemont and Henry Flood would 
have rigorously debarred them from the exercise of political rights. 
He brought up his children in the same principles; and together, 
father and sons, they fought the good fight for religious freedom. In 
1 788 the Provost and two of his sons represented constituencies in the 
Irish House of Commons, and his eldest son, Lord Donoughmore, sat 
at the same time in the Upper House. This nobleman, who was Grand 
Master of the Freemasons in Ireland, presented the Catholic petition 
in the House of Lords in 1810. He was proud of his position as ad- 
vocate of his Catholic countrymen, and may be s^d to have sacrificed 
his life in their service. Their interests required his presence in the 
British Parliament at a moment when his physician warned him that 
a journey to England must prove fatal. " Be it so/' he replied, '' I 
can merit no death so honourable or so agreeable.'' 

We hope this book will be as generally read as it deserves to be, 
and that it will help to re- awaken a strong interest in questions which, 
although suffered to fall into oblivion of late years, are nevertheless 
of vital importance to the welfare of this coimtry. '' Two things stand 
out clearly in this treatise," says the editor in referring to the work 
now reprinted, '' one is that Ireland, both as a producer and as a con- 
0umer, has been immensely profitable to England, and the other is 
that England has been the source of vast evil and suffering to Ireland. 
The purport of the ' Commercial Bestraints ' is to set forth these two 
great truths, and the record may be read now without prejudice on 
one side of the channel, or without panic or passion on the other." 
.We fully agree with the Eev. Mr. Carroll, when he points out to 
Irishmen the necessity of *' a sturdy development of their own native 
resources," and a ''re-creation of tiieir home industries and manufac- 
tures." "The land, after all, is not everything," he justly observes — 
" all the people cannot live by it and out of it — and, as Hutchinson 
observes, no one industry is sufficient to maintain a numerous popula- 
tion in prosperity and .comfort." 

XII. JUisceUaneous. 

There is a process in the law courts called "the ruling of the 
books," in which the judge winds up, we think, the business of the 
court, and gives sentenceonallthecases already heard and standingover. 
We intended to perform a similar judicial process this month; but we 
find it impossible, even in the most summary manner, to dispose of all 
the books that have submitted their claims to our adjudication. That 
pyramid of excellent books by the Nun of New Orleans is rising higher 
and higher : they will require a special article to themselveB.^Hessr8|^ 

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558 Nem Books. 

M. H. Oill & Son liaye collected into one yeiy cheap and attraotiye large 
qnarto with effectire illustrationB by the Irish Tenniel, John Fergus 
O'Hea, those Tales of *' Insh Pleasantly and Fun," which they have 
been publishing in parts. The boisterous fun of many of the sketches 
by Lever, Lover, and Co. is not, it must be confessed, much to the taste 
of the present ascetic reviewer ; but all the world is not as grave as a 
mustard-pot, happily for the proprietors of Funch and P(U. 

The same enterprising Publishers give the large quarto edition of 
'' Moore's Irish Melodies" with all the music for one shilling and 
sixpence. 

Mr. Yincent Scully has gathered in a sixpenny pamphlet extracts 
from Edmund Burke, bearing on contemporary politics, with a pleas- 
ing introduction which shows literary taste and a generous devotion to 
that great Irishman. 

"Agnes Wilmot's History" (London: E. Washboume), is evi- 
dently very edifjring and neaUy written. As the title-page mentions 
two previous tales by Miss Pennell, it is a wonder she has not been 
cured of her excessive fondness for italics. 

" Priest and Poet, and Other Poems," by J. D. Lynch (Dublin: 
Duffy & Sons), pleases us more by the themes chosen than by the way 
in which they are treated. There is some poetical feeling in most <rf 
the pieces that we have examined ; but everywhere faulty grammar, 
rhythm and sense. How far these defects are fatal depends on the 
age and experience of the writer. 

£ev. W. Lloyd has given in one small volume lives of the four 
recently canonised saints, Clare of Montefalco, Laurence of Brindisi, 
John Baptist de Bossi, and Benedict Joseph Labre (London : Bums 
ft Oates). 

Father Burke's Panegyric on St. Paul of the Chross, preached on 
his last feast, has appeared in a sixpenny brochure (Dublin : M. H. 
Oill & Son). 

The smallest and one of the beet convent-plays that we jhave met 
is '< Mercy's Conquest," by Annie Allen (London : Bums ft Oates). 
We are glad to see that Miss O'Hara's tale for First Communicants — 
" Clare's Sacrifice " (London : Waahboume)— has reached a second 
edition. It is far above the average of its dass. 



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( 559 ) 



AUTOBIOGEAPHT OF A WHITE B08E. 

BY EUTH O'CONNOB. 
I. 

ONE radiant sammer morning I awoke to blissful, "bewildering con- 
scioTisness of existence. The dawn of my life was greeted by 
joyonB Btmsliine, balmy, perfume-laden breezes, gentle rustling of 
trees, and the chirping of young robins. In an ecstasy of trembling 
delight I glanced around me, and, oh ! such a scene of beauty met my 
gaze ! What benignant fate had placed me in this favoured spot ? 
This beautiful garden, my birthplace, must surely have received 
Nature's most propitious glance and Art's most tasteful training, to 
rejoice in so much loveliness. Not mine the power of describing the 
floral endiantment upon which I gazed that fairest of fair moms ; but 
vividly has the beauteous scene been presented and represented to my 
mind on subsequent days, less fair, less bright. And now, when all 
the youth and beauty have gone out from my life for ever, I 
glance back, through winter^s snows and summer's heats — through 
tearful springtime and autumn's melancholy days, upon that one 
glad mom when the world opened before me. It must have been 
Flora's festival-day, over which Mother Nature presided in her 
most gracious mood ; for never since have I beheld a clearer land- 
scape, a bluer sky, or more golden sunshine. And my sister flowers 
must surely have donned their gayest robes to grace the occasion, 
as in gladsome mood they bent their pretty heads beneath the passing 
breezes in greeting one to the other. A family of tall hyacinths stood 
in stately dignity beside a heart-shaped bed of bright geraniums, 
whilst some graceful fuchsias, in all their crimson loveliness, bent over 
a young lily, dropping now and then in floral playfulness a dewdrop 
on her fair sweet face. Here was a bed of mignonette, dose to a 
growth of delicate ferns, and there some puiple heliotrope casting its 
most fragrant perfume over a little group of Bethlehem Stars. Near 
the centre of the garden was a cross framed in violet leaves : for the 
sweet little flowers themselves had Uved their young lives, had faith- 
fully performed their appointed mission, and when the spring-time 
waned, had drooped their slender heads and died, leaving behind a 
plenteous growth of dark-green leaves as a legacy of love. In 
one moist and shady spot a little community of forget-me-nots 
clustered together, having as a background some shaded carnations 
and sweet-brier. But my nearest companions were a family of rich 
crimson roses on one side, and on the other a growth of tender wood- 
ine, dinging to and twining around some tastef ully-devised,^green-. 

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560 Autobiography of a White Rose. 

painted snpport. My heart went out to that woodbine from the first 
moment, and whenever a passing breeze swept imezpectedly adown 
the garden, I bent my head behind my woodbine friend for mute pro- 
tection. Thus, as the great Day King shone out in all his splendour, 
entranced I gazed around me, taking in all the beauty by which I 
was surrounded, and by the time he had readied his meridian I had 
become acquainted with all my sister flowers. 

Anon, the zephyrs strayed from out the garden, as the noonday 
sun rested like a coronet of gold upon each floweret's brow, lulling her 
to sleep ; and scarce a sound was heard save the refreshing drip, drip 
of ikejet-d^eau in the centre of our floral home. My sister flowers 
seemed to have succimibed to the sleepy influence of the hour; 
but life to me was still too new and sweet to yield me to the loss 
of eyen one moment. Thus it was that I espied the busy bee 
earnestly gathering her honied store, as she murmured her mesmeric 
song over each floweret's head, and the tiny humming-bird insatiately 
speeding from flower to flower. 

And the day waned : the noontide had long sped when the truant 
breezes timidly returned, whispering their balmy messages into each 
floweret's willing ear, awakening her from her slumbering. A smilax- 
coTcred portal swung lightly on its hinges, as two fair human forms 
emerged into the garden, softly treading the grayelled pathway, and 
the cadence of a blithe and joyous voice was borne upon the zephyrs — 
a voice that probably had never mourned, had never had occasion for 
aught save mirthfulness. 

"I thank you, Alma," said this voice, "for the gracious carte 
blanche of your delightful garden, since I have concluded to wear 
natural flowers at the Keception to-night. Which shall I choose?'* 
As the forms approached : " Well, I see something here wondrously 
alluring; " and as a fair jewel-covered hand was extended, I shrank 
behind my woodbine friend ; but disregarding me, the hand rested 
lightly on the full-blown crimson roses, and the voice continued : 
"A generous bunch of these in my corsage, with a less liberal 
supply at my throat, will be a charming contrast with my cream-satin 
dress. Do not you agree with me P But at what are you peering so 
intenUy?" 

And then another voice responded — a voice marvellously low, 
and sweet, and clear — a* voice that seemed made for solacing. " I 
am looking," said this voice, "to note the progress of my youngest 
rose-bush, and am gladdened by the sight of one fair, opening bud ;" 
and slender, blue-veined, ringless fingers tenderly encircled my young 
life, giving thereto an added vibration. " Little white rosebud, I bid 
thee welcome to my garden ; " and a pale, clear-cut face bent above 
me, whilst liquid, violet eyes gazed earnestly into my heart, as the 
fair fingers gently separated my petals. 

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Autobiography of a White Rose. 561 

'' Do you really admire that puny-looking little thing ? " asked the 
joyous voice, whilst the jewels flashed, as the white hands made havoc 
amongst my crimson neighbours. 

"It is my favourite always ; but in some inexplicable way this 
particular white rose seems to be connected with my fate. I blame 
you not for that rippling laugh, my fancies merit it ; nevertheless, I 
am impressed with a feeling that this young bud will weave its 
fragrance through some desolate and some happier hours of my life." 
And the forms moved onward betwixt jessamine and lilies, and the 
voices grew fainter, and yet more faint, as I bent my weary head 
against my friendly woodbine, whilst the katydids amused themselves 
in playful contradiction, and the sim went down in a globe of crimson 
loveliness. 



n. 

I grew in floral beauty, each hour adding to my perfume and 
my pure white life, as I basked in glowing sunshine '* from mom till 
dewy eve." Each day brought a gentle step unto me, each day did 
earnest eyes scrutinise me closely, as slender fingers moved over my 
unfolding leaves. But one drear mom, the prelude of a tearful day, 
whilst the dewdrops still lay upon my breast, the gentle step ap- 
proached more slowly than was its wont, the pale face seemed paler, 
the large dark eyes larger and darker, and the slender fingers were 
unmistakably thinner, as they tremblingly rested over me. 

" Little white rose," spoke the wondrous voice, low and clear, more 
gentle in its cadence than any zephyr that had rippled athwart the 
garden, '' Little white rose, thou hast opened to full bloom on the 
saddest morning of my life.'' 

Gently was I wrested from my parent bush, and I trembled within 
the trembling fingers that encircled me, as, separated from my one 
green leaf, I was borne alone from my floral home for ever, whilst a 
blithe young robin chirrupped her farewell as I passed beyond the 
trellised portico. Through the darkened corridor into a darker room, 
where in one far comer lighted tapers kept watch around a silent form, 
was I noiselessly borne. Here was I placed upon a soulless breast, as 
pale lips were pressed upon the paler, unresponsive ones. And then 
the form knelt, the hands were clasped resignedly together, the eyes 
were raised tearlessly to a crucifix above the sleeper's head, whilst the 
pale, sensitive lips murmiured : " Thou hast taken my best beloved, 
Lord — my mother : life is desolate : my heart is broken. Thou knowest 
best, thy holy will be ever adored ! " Then whilst the young head 
was bowed, in a voice yet lower the sad tones came: '' I>t profundU 
damtm ad U, Domine,** And as the tapers flickered fitfully, making 



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562 Autobiography of a White Rose. 

weird shadows on the wall, I fell asleep with the solemn EepUeseai 
in pace murmured near me. 

I know not how long I slumbered, but I became conscious of aa 
unusual stir in the sombre room, and discovered that many of my 
sister flowers were surrounding the form upon whose breast I was 
reposing, though I looked in vain for my woodbine friend and my 
crimson neighbours. As the subdued stir increased, a kneeling form 
arose, and the slender fingers, whose touch was so familiar to my 
leaves, once more encircled me, and I was borne away. 

I never saw the sombre room again. My home was now a smaller, 
lightsome room, my resting-place the pages of a book at the foot of a 
bronze crucifix. Aiid here, each day at twilight, the dark-robed form 
knelt in low-voiced prayer, read from the page of which I formed the 
marker— "Dtf profundus 

And after many sunless days, when the winter waned and the 
spring-time dawned again, the step, erst slow and languid, regained 
elasticity, the hands moved busily about the white- walled chamber, 
and one lHac-scented evening, I was kissed and placed away. 

Long was my repose, awakened by the sound of plaintive chanting 
in many female voices, accompanied by the odour of holy incense from 
the convent altar ; and when next I saw the face so dear to my roee- 
heart, it was encased as a picture in a pure white frame. Never had 
it looked more lovely. All the old-time pensiveness was there, but it 
was intermingled with an expression of holy joyousness. And now I 
comprehend that she and I rest in our abiding-place on earth. The 
slender fingers now draped in heavy sleeves have placed me near her 
best-loved meditation, " The Prayer in the Garden," and oft at the 
dose of Complin I am gently sought. Her fingers still are ringless, 
her only ornament the silver cross upon her breast, and the calm light 
upon her face betokening interior peace ; for her life is now espoused 
to Him to whom she yielded so resignedly her heart's best treasure; 
who, in his incomprehensible wisdom and love, bereft her of all she 
held most dear on earth, that she might, like the beloved disciple, rest 
upon his breast for all eternity, knowing no love save his. 



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( 563 ) 



DEAD BROKE: 

A TAliB OP THB WESTEBK 8TATB8. 

BT THE LATE OILLOIT 0*BRISir. 
AUTHOR OP ""FRAWK BLAKB," "WIDOW XSLTILLV'S BO>BDI2rO«HOU8B,*' &C. ftO. 

CHAPTER XIV. 

JIM SANTA GLAX7S. 

Lt7GY sat on a low stool at her husband's feet, and holding his hands 
between both her own, listened to the recital of his late disappoint- 
ment. Eyery now and then she pressed the hands she held, or filled 
up the pauses in his sad story, with words of endearment and encou- 
ragement. But when he came to speak of his adventure in the rail-, 
road car, and in a husky, broken yoice told 'of the shame, humiliation, 
and insult he had been forced to endure, she hid her face for a moment, 
and pressing her forehead down upon the hand that rested upon his 
knees, droYe back the tears yaliantly. 

From the moment of her husband's return she had noticed what a 
terrible change the last few days had wrought in him. His face was 
haggard, pale, and flushed by turns, and the dull sadness of his eyes 
sometimes gaye place to a wild look. She felt that she required all 
her strength for both now, and dare not giye way to the luxury of 
tears. When she raised her head again, Robert was sadly gazing at 
three little stockings that hung down from the wall, with some toys 
and candy arranged under each. 

" And this is Christmas eye," he said. ** Where did those things 
come from, Lucr^ ?*' 

" Folly Flitters played Santa Claus in your absence," she answered. 

" Haye the children being expecting me ?" 

** We did not know whether to expect you or not ; at all eyents, I 
thought it better to coax them to go to bed." 

" I am glad not to meet the disappointed faces of my darlings to- 
night," he said. 

'' Robert," she answered, ** the children will be just as satis- 
fied with these toys as they would be with the ones you promised.'' 

"Promised!" he repeated, starting up, and walking about the 
room excitedly. '' Oh, my darlings, your poor father should promise 
nothing but new misfortunes, eyery day ; they follow him, haunt him, 
crush him; why can't they ^" 

He did not finish the sentence, for Lucy's arm went twining round 
Vox. X.. No. Ill, S,pt«nber. 1882. ^ ^^..^^^ ^^ (SoOglc 



564 Dead Broke. 

his waist. With gentle force, she got him to sit down again, and 
taking her old place, looked up into his face. 

'' Yes, £obert,*' she said, in a low, sweet voice, " this is Christmas 
Eve, the eve of the day Christ came on earth to suffer for us. And 
what are oiur sufferings to his? He, the sinless one, buffeted, spit 
upon, and nailed to a cross between two thieves.'' Then kneeling on 
the stool she nestled her head against his breast, still looking up into 
his eyes. " Bobert, my own, my darling, my love," she murmured. 

If there was an evil spirit hovering there, it fled before the light 
of a pure, holy love, stronger than it. 

Bobert rose, holding Lucy, still cHnging to his breast. '<My 
sweet wife,'* he whispered, " you have saved me ; listen to the prayer 
I learned from your lips, ' as Ood wills.' " 

At that moment the door bell rang. Each looked at the other. 

*' Lucy," said Bobert, " I am not able to see anyone to-night." 

<' It is likely only someone with a message from PoUj Flitters,'^ 

she answered. " She left here about twenty minutes before you came, 

and said there was some little toy she had forgotten, and would send 

over." 

So saying, she left Bobert standing in the parlour, and went to 
the door. When she opened it, a man, mufEed up to the eyes, 
handed her a package and letter, saying, as he did so, *' For Mr. 
M'Gbegor," and before she could ask a question he was gone. 

Lucy returned to her husband. '' A man handed me these for 
you, Robert, and then hurried off," she said. 

In handing the package, which was somewhat weighty, to Bobert, 
the former fell, the paper burst open, and a lot of gold coins rolled 
out upon the floor. Bobert started, and stooping, picked up a gold 
eagle. 

" What is thisP' he said, excitedly. " Gold! Lucy, there is 
some mistake here. Gather up this money, and put it safely by. It 
is not for us, Lucy. How unfortunate the package should fall and 
open." 

Lucy was equally surprised, but more self-possessed. '< The mistake 
is not ours, Bobert," she said. " At all events " (taking it from his 
hand), "this letter is for you; — ^it is directed, * Bobert M*Qregor;'— open 
it, Bobert.*» 

Taking the letter hastily from her hand, Bobert tore open the 
envelope. When he read the fijrst line, he hastily looked down at the 
signature. Then uttering a cry of joy, so loud that he awoke the two 
little boys sleeping in the room above, he caught Lucy up, and whirled 
her round the room. 

For a moment she thought that his senses had forsaken him ; but 
he reassured her by exclaiming, " Lucy, Lucy, Jim has returned— Jim 
is alive— Jim has returned." 



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Dead Broke. 565 

Then, each holding one side of the paper, Bobert read, breaking 
in upon every sentence with some ejaculation of surprise or joy : — 

*< Old Fellow, — I haye come back safe and sound, warranted in wind and limb. 
I thought to be with jou before tbis time, but baye been delayed, so I send you this 
letter by a friend, and will follow myself soon after ;^old boy, look out for me at any 
time. 

** To show you that it is myself, and not my ghost, that has arrived, I send you 
the two hundred dollars that you lent me when I was leaving ; but not the interest, 
Bobert Dear Robert, it will take a lifetime to pay that, old boy. Pear old fellow, 
we must never part again when we meet 

"Jim." 

That was all ; but it was enough to change a house of mourning 
into one of joy ; enough to bring the old light to Robert's eyes, and 
the courage to his heart ^ith Jim at his back, he felt strong enough 
to take a new wrestle with the world, and trip up the heels of slippery 
fortune. And Lucy, poor Lucy, who had so bravely borne up against 
crushing sorrow, now wept — but they were tears of joy. 

Soon two new actors, not noticed for some time, came upon the 
scene. Standing in the doorway, in their long night-dresses, were 
the two little boys, Bobert and James, endeavouring to crook the sleep 
out of their eyes, and when they succeeded in this, they simultaneously 
rushed forward, calling out, ''Papa! papa! papa!" Bobert snatched 
them up in his arms, one at a time, and curveted round the room with 
tiiem, much as he did with Lucy. Then their eyes fell upon the bright 
gold pieces their mother was picking up o£^ the floor, and James, 
clapping his hands, asked if Santa Glaus had brought all that 
money. 

''Tee, James," answered his father, laughing. "Santa Claus» 
our own especial Santa Olaus, brought it all. A new name for Jim, 
Lucy ; we must give it to him. Listen to the way he begins his letter : 
' Old fellow, I have come back safe and sound,' so like Jim, I think I 
hear him saying it. * Old boy, look out for me at any time.' Why, 
Lucy, he may be here to-morrow. Would not that be grand ? Christ- 
mas day and alL Dear old Jim ;" and then for the twentieth time, 
he re-read James Allen's letter. 

Then Lucy, drawing the two children to her, knelt down, and lift- 
ing up her beautiful face, still wet with tears, said " Heavenly Father* 
we thank Thee that Thou hast permitted us to see Thee in the darkness 
and in the storm ; and now we bless Thee in the sunlight." 

The children were soon back again to the toys they had found 
arranged under their stockings, and Bobert told them to take down 
their stockings, but not to touch Mary's. Climbing up on chairs, they 
did so, and out rolled from each a bright gold coin. Santa^Claus 

1 behaving splendidly this Christmas. 

'' You must tidy up a room for James, Lucy," said Bobert ; " he 



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566 Dead Broke. 

will see a great change ;" and even in bis new-found kappinesB a 
shade of sadness came to his face. 

The hours passed unheeded by, as husband and wife talked oyer 
the return of the long-absent friend, the one of all earth, thatBobert's 
weary spirit had ever yearned for, and with the children the toys had 
"murdered sleep,'* so that the bonny chimes of Christmas were ring- 
ing before the happy little household retired for the night. 

Bobert was up bright and early the next morning, and burst in 
upon the Flitters as they sat at breakfast, his face all aglow with 
happiness. '' A merry Christmas,'' he said, shaking hands all round. 

'* Welcome back," said Mr. Elitters, giving him a hearty shake. 
"How much?" 

In the joy of James' return, Robert had actually ceased to think of 
his late disappointment, and for a second did not comprehend the 
question ; then remembering, he said, " Oh, nothing, not one cent^ 
Mr. Flitters: It is not of that I am come to tell you ; but James Allen, 
the dear friend that you hecmi us speaking about so much, Polly, has 
come back from California." 

It was now that Mrs. Flitters showed herself to be the able woman 
she really was. Bobert's friend had returned from California, with a 
large fortune, doubtless, and PoUy was, as yet, unprovided for. Ex- 
tending her hand for a second time to Bobert, Mrs. Flitters said, with 
her blandest smile, " I congratulate you, Mr. McGregor." 

But Flitteis sat staring at his plate. In his experience, money 
was the best friend a man could meet with, and Bobert had missed 
that. 

It is noon. Bobert sits at the window fronting the street, reading 
or attempting to read. Suddenly a hack pulls right up at the gate, 
and a man with a dark red beard jimips out upon the side- walk. In 
a moment Bobert is out of the house, and the two loving friends, the 
playmates of childhood and of boyhood, are locked in each other's 
arms. " Bobert "— " Jim." 

Then comes Lucy down the walk. 

" Let me out, you jealous fellow," says James Allen, laughing, 
and breaking away from Bobert ; " I must and shall kiss your wife," 
and taking Lucy's outstretched hands, he imprints a bearded Idss upon 
her cheek. 

" Well," soliloquises the hackman, as he turns his horses slowly 
round, '' I'm darned if them folks aint glad to see one another.*' 

When the first joyous excitement had somewhat subsided, how 
mudi the friends had to tell each other ! Naturally, the first thing 
they spoke of was the death of Dr. McGhregor. 

" Here is his present, Bobert," said James, produdng the watch 
that the former had given to him from his father, the day they had 
parted. *' I prize it as I prize every memory of ^ini, every word I 



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Dead Broke. 567 

heard from the lips of the best and noblest of men. Tou remember 
what he said to me? * Be a true man in everything, James, and you 
will be a gentleman.' I tell you, Kobert, those words have been a 
talisman to me ; I have ever kept them before me, and endeayoured 
to lire up to them." 

" I do not believe," replied Robert, ** that anyone ever came into 
close contact with him without being benefited by it" 

"I must tell you," said James, **that I heard of your father's 
death, and of your marriage, some six months after the latter took 
place. I heard of both events from a son of Weasel's, who came out 
to California. You remember little Weasel and his Sunday lectures, 
and what disrespectful scamps we were?" And James laughed so 
heartily that the children joined in full chorus. 

** I did not know," said Robert, " that a son of Weasel's went to 
California." 

** Oh, yes," replied James. " And a very decent kind of young 
fellow he is, and doing weU. Although I had adhered to my foolish 
resolve of not writing, I had kept pretty good track of you," he con- 
tinued, ** until I heard with your marriage with my old flame, Lucy, 
here. Oh, you need not blu^h, madam, you jilted me in my tender 
years, and that's all about it," and James gave another of his conta- 
gious laughs. 

**Well," he continued, "when I heard of your marriage, I just 
said to myself, * they are settled down now, so I need give myself no 
more trouble about them, but keep steady at work, until I have enough 
to return with.' Since I came into Michigan, Robert, I heard, by 
chance, enough to make me know that in not writing to you I have 
acted far more than foolishly — I have acted badly. But, thank God, 
I find you in your old home, with your wife and children around you, 
and here is my namesake, Jim, a sturdy evidence, on two stout legs of 
his own, to show that you had not forgotten your careless friend. 
Come, now, tell me all about yourself, and then I'll commence my nar- 
rative in the most approved style, * My name is Nerval,* and so forth.'* 
Thus James rattled away, until he had learned from Robert all the 
events affecting the latter, which had transpired, including his late 
visit to New York, and the disappointment it resulted in. 

And now James had cause to congratulate himself on imderstand- 
ing his friend's sensitive nature so well as to have refrained from dis- 
closing his presence to Robert on board the train, for the painful 
incident which James had witnessed in the railroad car Robert never 
alluded to. 

'' It makes one's flesh creep,'* said James, "|to think of that old 
man, carrying his hatred for so many years locked up in his own 
breast, and then, out of the very grave, as it were, dealing his revenge- 
ful blow. I should have been with you, Robert, to take my share; for, 



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568 Dead Broke. 

yon remember, the bogus fur trade that led to all this was my bright 
plan." 

'* It was the plan of two foolish little boys, James/' answered 
Bobert ; '' but let us not speak any more of this man, or think of him, 
if we can help it." 

''That's right," said his friend, '^and after all, he has only 
wounded skin deep." 

'' The wound was deeper at the time than even he could have anti- 
cipated," replied Bobert ; " but the sight of you, old fellow, has 
healed it up," and for ^the twentieth time, since meeting, they shook 
hands. 

Then James commenced giving an account of his adventures in 
California. " Nothing romantic about them, Eobert," he said, laugh- 
ing, " some disappointments, some hard knocks, and plenty of honest 
work, that is all." 

It would seem, from James's stoiy, that he had no very great 
sudden streaks of luck, either good or bad, during his stay in Califor- 
nia. He worked constantly in the mines, never going to San Fran- 
cisco, imless on business, and then neither exchanging gold dust for 
bad whisky, or fighting the tiger, and after twelve years, found him- 
self worth some thirty thousand doUars. 

'' A big sum for me," he said ; '' so I thought I would come back 
and pitch my tent beside you, Robert. I find it hard to forgive my- 
self for not corresponding with you, and you must help me to do so." 

" How, James ?" 

** By letting me do what you would do, were you in my place, 
Bobert ; by letting me show that I am not forgetful of the compact 
of friendship we made, long ago, under Prince Charlie's tree. I have 
come to live with you, to share with you ; you must not drive me 
away." 

"No, no," replied Bobert ; ''I have longed too much for you to 
do that." 

<< Thank you, thank you, old fellow. Now I have something to 
propose; but, in the first place, it is altogether subject to your appiOTsl, 
Mrs. McKjhregor, so I will put it in the shape of a question. How 
would you like to go farther West, and that Bobert and I should take 
two large tracts of Government land, and become farmers on a grand 
scale?" 

Lucy's face beamed with joy. " That is the very choice I would 
make," she said, '' had I the power of choosing." 

" And you, Bobert?" asked James. 

''0 James," he answered, '*I am dazzled with the picture of 
happiness that you have conjured up ; but " 

" I wHI have no buts," interrupted James, '^ if they refer to mone^ 
matters ; they are unworthy of both of us, Bobert. Do you remember 



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Dead Broke. 569 

what 70U Baid to me when I was refusing to take the two hundred 
dollan from you P You waved me off with, ' Bemember, the money 
question is settled.' Just sa Now the money question is settled, 
another arises, Mrs. McGregor — a wife question. I certainly do not 
want to go upon one of those vast prairies in Iowa or Minnesota with- 
out a wife, and, Lucy, I am strongly under the impression that you 
and Robert, somehow, owe me a wife." 

Lucy clapped her hands as she replied, laughing : '' James, I have 
the dearest little wife for you ; the world does not hold a better. Was 
all the goldinjGalifomia melted into one lump, she would be worth it."" 

'' Softly, Lucy," said James, *' I am afraid you arejgoing beyond 
my ^^!^p!a^, '* Ah, I see how it is, she*s homely as old Harry." 

" On the contrary, she is very pretty." 

"What's her name?" 

"Polly Flitters. The Flitters are our nearest neighbours, and 
Polly is nearest and dearest friend." 

" That last is the best recommendation of all, Lucy ; but do not 
praise her any more, because she may refuse me—very likely, indeed : 
you know I am unlucky in love scrapes, and in that case I don't want 
to fret too much." 

What a happy day was this at Inverness Cottage ! One of those 
days to be marked with a white stone in life's pilgrimage, and long 
after the pleasant prattle of the children was hushed in sleep, Lucy, 
Hobert, and James, loath to part, remained conversing in the parlour. 
James had brought the conversation back to his farming scheme, and 
Bobert had consented to borrow five thousand dollars from him ; it 
was also settled that early the following spring the two friends 
ahould go West, to hunt up a location. 



CHAPTER XV. 

A FIBK AND A MATCH. 

Ii was near twelve o'clock when Lucy left the parlour to get a bed- 
room lamp, and Robert and James, standing by the stove, were still 
eagerly conversing, when they heard the startling cry of fire. Open- 
ing the door quickly, Flitters was seen rushing across the street, bare- 
headed, and with nothing on but his drawers and shirt, while at every 
step he bellowed, " Fire ! fire !" At the same instant, from the lower 
windows of his house, the flames came bursting out. 

Then upon the night air there rose a woman's piercing cry, and 
two white forms were seen at an upper window, Polly Flitters with 
her arm round her mother, who still continued to scream and gesticu- 
late wildly. 



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570 Dead Broke. 

" My wife, my child !" exclaimed Flitters, catching Robert's arm ; 
*' oh, save them, save them !" 

James Allen was about rushing across the street, when Bobert 
called to him, *' Stay by me, James," he said, *' and together we will 
be able to save them." 

Then he ran round to the side of the cottage, and was back in a 
minute with a short ladder on his shoulder and an axe in his hand. 
Handing the latter to James, they hurried across to the burning house. 
'' Bobert," said James, as they ran along, " that ladder is too 
short." 

" Not for the use we will put it to," answered the other. " Keep 
dose to me ; if we separate, they are lost." 

The roof of Mr. Flitters' kitchen was much lower than that of the 
main building, and attached to the kitchen was a wood-shed with a 
still lower roof. To this point Bobert made. The moment he placed 
the ladder against the shed, James comprehended his plan of action. 
Just as they reached the roof of the shed, and were about to draw up 
the ladder. Flitters appeared. Telling him to hurry back to the street 
and call out to those at the window to keep up their courage, for help 
was at hand, Bobert and James mounted by the ladder to the kitchen 
Toof , and from thence to the roof of the main building. Drawing up 
the ladder again after them, Bobert, followed by James, made for 
where he knew the skylight was situated. It was shut, but with two 
blows of the ax, James smashed it in, and putting the ladder through 
the aperture thus made, the two leaped down and found themselves in 
the garret of the burning house. Then, Bobert leading, they rushed 
down into the room at the window of which Mrs. Flitters and PoUy 
still remained. The boards burned under their feet as they crossed 
the room. *'Saye my mother!" exclaimed poor Polly, and James 
obeyed her, by catching Polly herself up in his arms, while the heavier 
burden fell upon Eobert's shoulders. Hurrying away, they had but 
reached the garret, when the floor of the room they had just left fell 
in. There was not a moment to lose. Bearing Polly on one arm as if 
she was but a feather's weight, James, who required no guidance now, 
ran up the ladder to the roof, but Bobert, burdened with Mrs. Flitters, 
could not ascend in any such graceful style, so he even carried her 
as the '' pious ^neas " bore his father from the ruins of Troy. Des- 
cending by the same way they had ascended, Bobert and James ap- 
peared in the street, to receive the lusty cheers of those that the fire 
had attracted to the spot ; and hurrying across to the cottage, James 
consigned the now fainting form of Polly to Lucy's outstretched arms, 
while Mrs. Flitters, sliding from Bobert's back, had a good, comfort- 
able faint on the sofa, from which she was aroused by Flitters fling- 
ing nearly half a pail of cold water over her — ^the first and last time 
^ ever took such a liberty with that able woman. 

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Dead Broke. 

" The senranta, Mr. Flitters ?" cried Eobert, hurrying in from the 
street, to which he had returned, after depositing Mrs. Plitters on the 
Bofa." 

'* They are safe," replied Mr. Flitters. "The two girls went to 
spend the Ohristmas with some friends, and are not to return until 
morning." 

" Then no matter about the house," said Eobert. " Thank Gk)d, 
all are safe." 

Eichard Flitters, Jun., was at this time away at a boarding-school - 
so that when the two servant girls were accounted for, Eobert was 
satisfied of the safety of all the inmates. 

" The house is fully insured, and so is the furniture," said Flitters. 
Of course they were ; all the elements combined could not injure Flit- 
ters in money matters. 

Lucy gave up her own room to Mrs. Flitters and Polly, rolled 
them up in warm blankets, and adminstered to them strong tea, while 
Bobert restored the ruddy glow to Flitters' cheek by a generous bum- 
per of hot-stuif , which the little man drank, sitting at the stove, with 
a red-striped table-cover thrown over his shoulders, like a Soman 
toga. Indeed, so exhilarating was the effect of the hot-stufp on the 
little man, that it made him quite jolly, and somewhat reckless ; he 
dapped Eobert and James frequently on the back, and vowed that 
" they were the best and bravest fellows in the world ;" and when he 
was passing, on his way to bed, the room in which Mrs. Flitters and 
Folly were, he knocked at the door loudly with his knuckles, exclaim- 
ing as he did so : '' Good-night, old woman — good-night, PoUy." 

Mrs. Flitters could scarcely believe her ears ; the idea of his address- 
ing her in vulgar slang. He did so once before, after returning from 
a farewell supper, given to him by some of his Bowery friends, before 
leaving New York. " Where are you going to, sir ?" she asked, in 
mufiOied sternness, from beneath the blankets. 

"Hie— guess, Jim Allea and I are— hie — ^to bunk together," 
answered Flitters. 

''Polly," said Mrs. Flitters, in suppressed wrath, "as I am a 
suffering woman, your father is vulgarly intoxicated. Did you hear 
his low language, and did you hear him calling Mr. Allen — the gentle- 
man who saved your life, my child, a most romantic incident, which 
might lead to a great deal— calling him Jim? Why don't you 
answer me, Polly ?" 

But Polly could not answer, for she had the bed-dothes over her 
head, and was shaking with laughter. 

Flitters, notwithstanding the effects of the strong bumper, would 
have been the first up in the house next morning, but that he had to 
wait in bed until Eobert brought him some clothes to wear. Eobert 
being rather tall, and Flitters decidedly short, the garments provided 

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572 Dead Broke. 

were but a poor fit. The coat, a swallow-tail, faded blue, was entirely 
too long in the waist and sleeves ; it would have improved the fit ol 
the pants to 'have cut off about half a foot in the length, and but one 
button of the vest could be made to dose. But Flitters was in the 
best of good-humour, and laughed heartily with Bobert, as the latter 
assisted him in his toilet. 

Lucy and James Allen were already in fte breakfast-room when 
Polly entered. 

The wardrobe which Mrs. McG-regor had left at her disposal was 
neither very eztensiye, new, or fashionable ; but, like Lucy herself, 
Polly was one of those tidy little bodies that lend a charm to what 
they wear, instead of having to borrow from the taste of ^.the dress- 
maker, and with the effect of last night's fright still robbing her cheeks 
of their roses, she never looked more interesting. 

*' Polly, love !*' exclaimed Lucy, going forward to meet h«r, 
"this is Mr. James Allen, Polly. He was very anxious yesterday to 
make your acquaintance, and I promised to introduce him ; but if I am 
not mistaken, somebody put some other body into my arms last night ; 
so I conclude that the introduction has already taken place." 

All the roses were now back into Polly's cheeks, but nevertheless, 
Lucy's playful bantering ('^ most wicked of her," Polly said after- 
wards) could not prevent her from expressing, with grateful warmth^ 
her thanks to James Allen. 

« I consider myself the luckiest fellow in the world, Miss Flitters," 
he replied, *' in being able to do you a service ; but Bobert deserves 
most of the praise. But for his coolness and presence of mind, I 
shudder to think what might have happened. Did you make any 
attempt to go down stairs P" 

" Yes, but the flames and smoke drove us back ; and I did not know 
until, thanks to you, I was safe in the house here, but that poor papa, 
who slept down stairs, was lost." And again the pretty face grew 
pale, and the young girl shivered. * 

" Oh, you must not think any more about the danger you have aU 
so happily escaped, Miss Flitters," said James. *' AU's well that ends 
well, you know. Here is Mrs. McGregor," he continued, turning 
round ; but Lucy had left the room, and, would you believe it, Jim 
then and there commenced to make love to Polly Flitters — to be sure 
he had fallen in love the night before, when her young, frightened 
heart was beating wildly against his own — and Polly — ^well, no, I 
won't tell any stories of Polly, just now. Let the poor little thing 
first recover from her fright, with Cupid — cunning urchin, disguised 
as gratitude — attending physician. 

Before going down to breakfast, Flitters paid a visit to Mrs. FUtters, 
who stiU remained in bed. With a vague remembrance of his j<^y 
'* good-night," a few hours before, and consequently some misgivings 

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Dead Broke. 573 

as to his reception, he entered the room ; but his friend, Mrs. McGre- 
gor, had given such a highly coloured account of hiB daring attempt to 
get upon the roof of the burning house, being only prevented by 
Kobert*8 drawing up the ladder, and of his frantic grief while the 
danger lasted, that his wife's heart was softened towards him, and in 
this mood she received him. 

" How do you feel, my dear V said Flitters, stooping down and 
kissing her. 

*' Shattered, Flitters," she replied, " shattered. We have been a 
long time together, Bichard." 

''And will be, I hope, my dear," said Flitters. 

'' I don't know. Flitters ; a man can bear a great deal " (so Flitters 
often'thought), "but when a woman, with her finer organisation, gets 
shattered — ^ah, dear me ! Polly would take care of you, Flitters, if I 
was gone." 

" Why, how you talk, Bessy. There is nothing the matter with 
you or any of us, thank Ood, but a big fright. They are all merry 
and laugldng below ; — ^get up and join them." 

"How can I get up, Flitters," she answered, "without any 
clothes ? My beautiful wardrobe is all burned." 

"Never mind the clothes," said her husband, "I will sign a 
check, and you can fill it up, and get all you want for yourself and 
Polly." 

" Tou are a good creature, Flitters," she replied. Then with ani- 
mation, which showed that all the shattering was completely for- 
gotten, she added : " But I must get some things immediately made 
for Polly and myself." And she forthwith commenced to give her 
husband instructions, which set about a dozen dressmakers and sewing 
girls busy at work half an hour after Flitters had eaten his breakfast 
and gone down town. 

As he trotted down the garden-walk, with the legs of the long pants 
and sleeves of the blue coat tucked up, with a hat entirely too large 
for him, and the coat-tails almost touching the groand, he bore a 
most ludicrous resemblance to the "Artful Dodger," when Oliver 
Twist first made that young gentleman's acquaintance; but when 
Flitters reached the gate and turned round to wave his hand to his 
friends at the hall-door, his honest, pleasant face did away with the 
resemblance altogether. 

So well did Mr. Flitters perform his wife's commissions, that she 
was enabled to appear, in excellent humour, at the supper-table that 
evening. With the utmost warmth and sincerity, she thanked Robert 
and James for their brave rescue of herself and her daughter. In 
f act,the shock she had received (this looking at death right between the 
eyes), had a very beneficial, lasting effect on Mrs. Flitters. Bobert 
McGregor used to say afterwards, " that she had been tried in the 
fire, and came forth purified." Digitized by GoOglc 



574 Dead Broke. 

So with Bobert himself • He could not but feel a proper pride in 
the part he had acted during the fire. Everyone was praising \\\m^ 
and the Trumpet of Liberty sounded his fame throughout the length 
and breadth of the land. All this, together with the release from har- 
rassing thoughts, and above all, the companionship of James — ^his 
back, as he called him — Whelped to restore vigour and elasticity to his 
mind and body, and, as Lucy expressed it, '' he was coming back to 
his old self more and more every day." 

But good f ortrme, which had now taken up the running, seemed 
determined not to stop until it had distanced, and left completely out 
of sight the misfortunes which had so long pursued Bobert McGregor. 

The day after the fire, Mr. Flitters and his family went to board at 
an hotel, imtil he could provide himself with a house, and James 
Allen was a constant visitor of theirs. Whether he went to get lessons 
in refined manners from Mrs. Flitters, or to study ** the art of love " 
with Polly, I leave for the present to be guessed at. 

Every day, too, on her way to the post-office, Lucy called. 

Why did Mrs. McGregor insist on going herself every day to the 
post-office ? Ah, that was Lucy's little secret, and it had such a tiny 
hope to buoy it up that she did not reveal it to anyone. 

Robert, on his return from New York, had spoken so well of Mr. 
Livingstone, and described him as such a kind, benevolent old gentle- 
man, one, too, who evidently sympathised with him, that Lucy had 
got it somehow in her head that this good banker, as executor to 
William McGhregor's will, might find some way to help Robert. If a 
letter with good news should come, she would have the joy of handing; 
it to Eobert. But as week after week went by, her hope grew less 
and less, and she resolved to get rid of the idea altogether, when, lo ! 
just as she made her last call at the post-office, a letter, with the 
address of the Livingstone bank printed on the outside, was placed in 
her hand. Lucy never knew how she got home that day. Polly 
Elitters used to say that Lucy certainly flew by the windows of the 
hotel; but home she was, standing before Bobert and James, flushed 
and panting, with the letter in her hand. She held it forth to £obert» 
without speaking, and opening the envelope he read : 

'* Dear Sm, 

*< I rejoice tb&t I hare good news to tell yoa. I find that William MoOregor, 
for many years before his death, did not draw the interest on the ten thoosand pounds 
which he had in the English funds. 

** This interest, with compound interest, amounts to the sum of fifteen thousand 
dollars, and as your uncle only disposed of the principal in his will, jou, as his heir- 
at-law, become entitled to this sum of fifteen thousand dollars, which I hold subject 
to your order. I hope you will come in person for the money, that we may zenew 
our acquaintance under happier circumstances. 

<* Again oongratulating you. in all sincerity, 
'* I remuiQ, 

" Geo. D. LnrurosTONV." 



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Dead Broke. 575 

In imagination, look in at the happy tableau within the cottage. 
Imagine the joy of the inmates. James Allen felt that in the minutes 
immediately following the reading of the letter husband and wife 
should be left alooe. 

" Hurra ! " he cried, picking up his hat. " I want but to know 
one thing now to make me the happiest dog aliye ! " and banging the 
hall-door, he was gone. 

Within an hour he did know that '* one thing/* for Polly Flitters 
told him that she loved him. 

Early in the spring, Polly Flitters and James Allen were married. 
It would be a complete failure on my part did I attempt a description 
of Polly's bridal dress ; for though I was at her wedding, I noticed 
not the colour or texture of her robe, so interested was I with her 
innocent, happy, pretty face. 

But I have a bewildered recollection that Mrs. Flitters* " get up " 
was something overwhelming — grand, awful, in fact — ^for I saw the 
verger of the church pale and stagger before it, as he showed her into 
a pew, and saw him restored to his normal official state by a lively 
pinch, administered by Flitters, as he passed in after his wife. 

"Where are your gloves, Flitters?" she asked, eyeing his jbare 
hands. Flitters at once put his hand up to the inspiring spot, and, 
sure enough, there lay the white kids. 

Before leaving the house, Mrs. Flitters had given these gloves to 
her husband, with positive instructions to wear them, and he had put 
them in his hat, and thus they came to rest on the bald spot. He now 
looked at them, polished his head vigorously, and whispered to 
Mrs. Flitters. " It's really very extraordinary, my dear. I have no 
idea how " 

" Put them on, sir,*' interrupted the able woman, severely. 

A few days after Polly and James had set out on their bridal tour, 
Robert made a journey to Tom Mahon's. He had promised Mrs. 
Mahon to go and tell her when his good luck came to him, and now it 
had come, and he was on his way to fulfil his promise. You may well 
believe that the buggy in which he rode was filled with presents from 
Lucy to Mrs. Mahon. 

The good woman was making butter when Eobert drove up to the 
farm-house. She saw him alighting. Down fell dish and butter into 
the chum, and out of the house rushed Mrs. Mahon to greet him. 

** You have come to tell me of the good luck ?" she exclaimed. 

'* Indeed I have Mrs. Mahon," Kobert answered, taking both her 
hands, and giving them a hearty shake. 

" God be praised," she said. '* Well, didn't I tell you God was the 
strongest, praised be his holy name ? Come into the house. Oh, but 
you're more welcome than the flowers of June. Here, Pat, take Mr. 
McGregor*s horse ; and, Johnny, run quick and call your father ; oh. 

Vol. X., No. 111. Dig?^edbyG00gle 



576 Dead Broke. 

wonH Tom be proud and bappy when be bears tbe news ? My dangbter, 
Eittie, Mr. McGregor. Tbe bouse is all tossed up, but no matter, God 
be praised. Ob, be was ever and always good." And so ran on Mrs. 
Mabon, wbile witb ber cbeck apron sbe wiped away tbe tears of joy 
tbat came brimming to ber eyes. 

Bobert remained witb bis friends two days, and before be left, it 
was almost settled upon tbat wben Tom Mabon got a purcbaser for 
bis farm in Micbigan, be would move witb bis family out West, and 
locate in Bobert*s neigbbourbood ; so tbe latter promised to look out 
for a good location for bim ; but be bad yet to select one for bim- 
self. 

Tbe marriage of James cbanged bis and Robert's programme 
somewbat, as tbey now resolved to bring tbeir wives, and all of 
£obert*s family along witb tbem wben tbey went West, so tbat tbey 
would be in a position to settle rigbt down, wben tbey found a location 
to suit. Tbis arrangement was carried out on tbe return of Mr. and 
Mrs. Allen, and on tbe Ist of May tbe two families left Micbigan for 
tbe still fartber West, and on tbe same day tbe Flitters moved into 
tbe cottage, baving rented it from Bobert. 

Close to a clear lake, wbose sbores are sbaded by magnificent trees, 
Bobert McGregor and James Allen bave tbeir bomes. Tbeir bouses, 
built in tbe timber, are well protected from tbe cold winds of winter, 
and tbeir farming lands stretcb over tbe broad prairie in front. 
Tbey bave done mucb around tbeir places to add to tbe beauty of 
scenery tbat nature bad already made beautiful. 

Eacb enjoys as mucb bappiness as a good wife, a pleasant bome, 
and a true friend can give, and tbese can give a good deal. 

Tbe second year after tbe two families bad settled out West, Mrs. 
Flitters was sent for in bot baste, and a little wbile after ber arrival, 
tbe cry of an infant — tbe sweetest music tbat ever fell on a young 
motber*s ears — was beard in James Allen's bouse. 

Sbortly after tbe birtb of Polly's cbild, Mrs. Flitters dis- 
covered a lucky mole low down on tbe infant's sboulder, and from this 
discovery, Mrs. Flitters augurs tbat wben tbe cbild grows up, sbe will 
make a wealtby marriage — tbe great essential, for wbicb tbe Mis. 
Flitters of society suppose female babies come into tbe world. 

Now tbat Flitters bas taken bis son into partnership, '' Flitters & 
Son " being tbe name of tbe firm, be spends part of every summer 
witb James and Bobert. The first time be visited tbem, tbey took him 
out to bunt, and be bandied bis gun so awkwardly tbat notbing bat 
Lis usual good fortune saved bim from shooting himself or one or 
other of bis friends ; so they have selected a safer amusement, and take 
bim on fishing excursions. 

H e knows nothing of tbe ' ' gentle art ;" but tbat makes no difference, 
be catches more than both his friends, and, witb tbe gentlest pi^* 

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Summer Flowers. 577 

beaming in his eyes, he takes the fish off his hook and drops them 
into his basket. 

Simson, who married his daughter, Anna Maria, is now a pros- 
perous merchant. 

Jenkins has been very successful of late, in the characters of Bull 
and Bear, in Wall- street; but sooner or later, men of his loose principles 
are apt to fall lower and lower in the social scale, nor is there likely 
to be an exception in his case, for his friends speak of running him 
for Congress. 

THE END. 



SUMMER FLOWERS. 

LITTLE children, come away 
To the fields and valleys gay. 
See the fiowers that deck the land, 
Scattered there by God*s right hand ! 

From the daisy to the rose, 

Not a blossom but He knows ; 

Not a bud but He hath given 

Form and fragrance straight from heaven. 

E'en as eveiy child of prayer 
Hath the Father's love and care, 
Living always in his smile, 
All untouched by sin or guile : 

So the violets in their dew, 
And the roses rich of hue. 
And the lilies full of light, 
Bloom by living in his sight. 

Where He smiles, they spring in mirth 
From the cold and darksome earth, 
Brightening with their presence sweet 
Tedious paths for weaiy feet. 

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578 Everyday Thoughts, 

Little children, as you play, 
In the summer woodlands gay, 
Oh! be tender with the flowers, 
Shorten not their fleeting hours. 

In their beauty let them stand, 
Or gathering tiiem with reyerent hand. 
Let them fill your homes with bliss, 
Love them as your mother's kiss ! 

Cull the sweetest yet again. 
Take them to the bed of pain, 
Lay the brightest and the best 
Softly on the wasted breast. 

Bring to him who never sees 
Fields that laugh with buds like these^ 
Fields to him so far abroad — 
Love's sweet message from his Qtxl ! 

So his pain be soothed away, 
And his lonely bed be gay. 
And his soul be filled with prayer. 
Musing on a Father's care ! 

Little children, come and see ! 
Woods are decked full gloriously. 
Cull the flowers with care and love : 
Blessings they from Ood above ! 

B. M 



EVEEYDAY THOUGHTS. 

BY MBS. FRANK PENTRILL. 

IL — On thb CHOosiNa of WrvBs. 

Last evening, being at Mrs. Leaderly's *' At Home," I spent most of 

the time watching my young friend Jonep, who is a great favourite of 

mine, and about whose future wife I often indulge in hopes andspecu- 

^ns. Jones is an honest, manly young fellow— good-natured 

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Everyday Thoughts. 579 

withal — and early in the evening I noticed him talking to Mary, and 
trying, as he would himself express it, to draw her out of her shell : 
but all his efforts were in vain. Mary was more than usually shy, 
and so ill-dressed that she looked almost plain, and Jones turned away 
at last, with a sense of duty got rid of, and devoted himself to Angela. 

What a contrast the two girls presented this evening ! Angela's 
lovely face, her dainty dress, her winning ways, would have conquered 
the prejudices of the most inveterate misogynist, and it was no wonder 
that honest, simple Jones should yield himself a willing slave. Her 
brightest looks were all for Jones .to-night, and when she smiled at 
him he felt himself almost a hero, certainly a very different being to 
Brown and Bobinson, who were also hovering round the popular idol, 
and who, hating Jones in their hearts, would only have agreed with 
him on the one point of thinking that Angela's name but half expressed 
her angelic nature. She sang ; and even the talkers in far-off comers 
stopped to listen to the sweet, clear voice that no shyness marred. The 
song she chose was a simple, sad melody, and her very soul seemed to 
float on the notes, as they rose and f eU, thrilling all our hearts. 

Ah ! why, thought I, should heedless nature give to one the looks, 
the tones that move our souls to their inmost depths, and to another 
the tender, loving heart, the faithful heroic nature, that finds no out- 
ward expression ? For Mary still sat in her comer, like '' some mute 
inglorious " Patti, whom no one noticed. She looked and listened 
with an admiration totally devoid of envy, and, if Jones had turned to 
her then, he must have been struck by the sweet, innocent face so full 
of unselfish pleasure. But there was no such chance. Jones hung 
entranced on Angela's singing, and was, even then, preparing that 
litde speech which was, he thought, to seal his fate and make him 
happy for life. 

The evening wore on, and Angela's train of worshippers gave Jones 
no opportunity of whispering the all-important words. He was grow- 
ing impatient when a happy thought struck him. It is all very well 
for Raphael's angels, or Fra Angelico's, to float about in diaphanous 
draperies, but, in our northern dime, even celestial beings have to 
be guarded against the east wind ; so Jones hurried down to secure 
Angela's fur wrappings ; but he was again defeated, for Brown and 
Bobinson were as eager as himself, and all that he gained was a 
beaming smile as she drove away. Poor Jones ! he consoled himself 
a little, being still young and foolish, by walking up and down the 
street, where Angela dwelt ; thereby greatly disturbing a policeman, 
whose middle-aged mind did not '* lightly turn to thoughts of love," 
but rather to suspicions of arson and midnight robbery. 

You may have heard of that cynical spirit who, lifting off the roofs 
of houses, revealed all that lay hidden within. But the demon con- 
jured up by the Canon of Boulogne, showed mostly evil^things,. 

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580 Everyday Thoughts. 

wher eas, if you, friend Jones, will take me for your guide, we also will 
try our hands at lifting roofs : though, I trust, we may rather learn 
how often beauty and truth lie concealed beneath homdy exteriors. 

First let us stop at Angela^s house. Fre%to ! the roof is off ! Now 
tell me what you see. Is that girl with the cross and weary look the 
same sweet creature who charmed us all last night? — and where are 
the wings that made her seem so lovely ? Ah ! they were too bright 
and gorgeous for everyday use, and are carefully put away in her 
wardrobe, to be taken out and worn when next she appears in society. 

We all know that true if rather vulgar proverb^ about the man 
who, when at home, hangs the fiddle behind the door : and yesterday 
how skilfully Angela played on her fiddle. It seemed a Stradivarius 
touched by the master-hand of Herr Joachim, or Madame Neruda. 
But this morning ! ah, this morning it more resembles the cracked 
instrument of a blind fiddler at a fair ; nay, his has this advantage 
that it plays, at least, cheerful airs, whereas Angela's notes are all 
shrill complainings or muttered grumblings. The servants run to do 
her bidding with more of fear than love ; and one notices, in a moment, 
that her parents do not expect, at her hands, those little, loving atten- 
tions which are so dear to age. I think we have seen enough ; — give 
me your hand, Jones ; — we will try our luck elsewhere. 

This rather dingy house is where Mary lives. The roof is off, look 
down. Hush ! what sweet voice is that singing the morning hynm ? 
Can it be the same which last night reminded you so painfully of your 
first spelling-book, and seemed, like it, to allow only of monosyllables ? 
Ah, yes, dear Jones, it is, for there stands Mary among her little 
brothers and sisters. See what a healthy glow is on her cheek, what 
a happy light in her kind eyes ; and look ! there are wings growing 
at her shoulders ! Yesterday they were modestly folded away beneath 
her ill-fitting dress, but this morning you can see them well enough : 
not wings such as Angela's, gaudy with rainbow hues, but white and 
soft as summer clouds. 

Such useful wings, too ! for now, as Maiy stands among the chil- 
dren, they seem to grow large and strong as a guardian angel's, to 
protect lliose helpless ones from the world's cold blast Presently 
when she goes into her mother's sick-room it will appear to the poor 
invalid as if they brought with them all the sunshine and perfume 
of the summer morning ; and this [evening, when her father comes 
home, these same wings will brush away, with gentlest touch, the 
mud and dust wherewith the world has bespattered him. For Mary's 
father is a disappointed man ; the cup of life has held for him 
nothing but bitter draughts ; everyone has seemed either to cheat or 
contemn him ; and he has 'often said, in the bitterness of his heart, 
that all men were liars. It is only when Mary smiles in his face that 
he once more believes in goodness and truth. 



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Everyday Thoughts. 581 

But I grow prosy, talking of my favourite's virtues, and all the 
wliile poor Jones is hovering uncomfortably among the chimney-pots, 
and inhaling the smoke of newly-lighted fires. Ah, Jones, it is break- 
fast time, so let us home, and, while you chip your eggs and sip your 
coffee, ponder well on what you have seen. You may, perhaps, find 
reason to alter that pretty speech, which you were so eager to whisper 
in Angela's ear. And look you, you were always my l^favourite, yet 
Brown and Bobinson are worthy young fellows, too, and if you choose 
to tell |them of your morning escapade, why, do so. They perhaps 
may also profit by your experience. 

Two pretty girls have been reading my little essay. "I am quite 
sure," cries one, '* that the authoress is a disagpreeable woman, and 
as ugly as she can possibly be." 

Well, perhaps so ; but authors, you know, have the right of be- 
ing as ugly as they please : as ugly as the prophet of Khorassan, pro- 
vided they do not lift their veiL It is only their voice that matters. 

" Ah, yes," says Eosy-lips, ** but your voice is not like his. It is 
full of harshness and spite. You would make us believe that every- 
thing that is charming is bad." 

Heaven forbid that I should think or say so. For the queen's 
place in my heart is given to one whose lovely face is only the title- 
page of a soul still more beautiful. But, dear, pretty girls, you are the 
roses and lilies of this world*s garden, and everyone, looking at you, 
is willing to believe you as good as you are charming. Then why not 
let me plead for your less fortunate sisters, the poor little humble 
daisies? The envious grass grows round them, and though their 
hearts are bright and golden, their own shy petals often close over 
them and hide them from our view. Do not, then, begrudge a kind 
word to the lowly blossoms whom so few heed, and so many tread 
upon. 



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( 582 ) 
A LITTLE WHILE. 

BY WESTON BEAT. 

I LONG to hear my welcome liome 
Upon the eternal shore, 
To pass the gates of Paradise, 
Safe, safe for evermore. 

I long to feel God's gentle Hand 

Wiping away my tears, 
To feel his kiss upon my soul, 

And this for eternal years. 

I long to gaze upon that Face, 

Without a veil between, 
Whose beauty my soul's ravishment 

E'en here below hath been. 

I long to see those five dear Wounds, 

All glorious now and bright ; 
To see the victory of my Lord 

O'er shame, and death's dark night. 

I long to hear those "many things,*' 

Which here I could not bear : 
Those secrets of the Sacred Heart 

The blessed only hear. 

But can such joys as these I've thought 

Indeed be meant for me ? 
Yes ; for God wills them to be mine. 

Mine for eternity. 

Jesus, Thou saidst Thou'dst come again 

To take us home with Thee, 
That where Thou art, for evermore 

There also we might be* 

Only " a little while " Thou saidst 
'Twould be before Thou'dst come. 

Yet long the waiting seems, my Love, 
As days and years pass on. 

But while I linger here, oh ! break 

The links of every chain ; 
That Thou ma/st fiud my spirit free 
When Thou shalt " come again." 
Ascension Tkunday, 1882. ^ , 

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( 583 ) 



O'CONNELL: 

HIS DIABT FROM 1 792 TO l802, AND LETTSBS. 

NOW FOR THE FIRST TIUE PT7BLISHID. 

PabtV. 

His First Fee-book and Some Lettebs. 

The disappointment which many of our readers mnst have felt, and 
which some of them have expressed, at the sudden termination of the 
diary kept by Daniel O'Connell, in his early .manhoood, might have 
been partially mitigated by the announcement which we ought to have 
appended to its last instalment, that this does not exhaust the store of 
original O'Connell Papers which " The Irish Monthly " has the privi- 
lege of printing for the first time, thanks to the kindness of the 
Liberator's son, Mr. Morgan O'Connell.* 

However, before passing on to our precious fragments of O'Connell's 
unpublished correspondence, it is well to make a remark on one of the 
concluding passages of the Diary, and we do so on the authority of 
the relative whom we have named. In the passage referred to, the 
young barrister (then, on the last day of '98, twenty-three years old), 
reproaches himself for some indiscretion which in those hard-drinking 
days would have been accounted a very trivial matter. Probably this 
was the one occasion on which, as he afterwards confessed in the hear- 
ing of our informant, he had exceeded the proper limits of temperance. 
He added that the resolution of abstemiousness which he then formed 
he kept ever after ; and during vacation times in Iveragh he insisted 
on breaking through the blockade instituted by the convivial circle, who, 
according to the barbarous hospitality of the period, locked the door 
to prevent anyone from leaving the scene of the symposium. If young 
O'Connell had not emancipated himself from the thraldom of this 
social vice, would he have emancipated his country ? 

On referring back to our last extracts from O'Connell's Diary, it will 
be noticed that the entries become very few in 1 798, and cease altogether 
after June 1802. This may be explained :by two important events 
which happened at those dates : his call to the bar, and his marriage. 
Between these two a still more important event was very near happen- 
ing — his death. During one of his hunts through the Kerry moun- 

* Our gratitude is also due to Mr. John Thomas Deri tt, J. P., B.L, Limerick, 
whose interest in our Magazine suggested this destination for documents which had 
lurked too long in manuscript They were, no doubt, intended to be utilised in that 
Life of Himself, which, as John O'Connell announced, in 1846, his illustrious father 
purposed writing in that leisure which never came. ^^ , 

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584 CConnelL 

tains he got a thorough drenching, and, letting his clothes dry apon 
him, he caught a cold, against which he struggled on for a fortnight, 
till at last he was struck down by a raging fever. In his delirium he 
often repeated these lines from Home's tragedy of " Douglas :*' 

" Unknown I die ; no tongue shall speak of me. 
Some noble spirits, judging by tbemseWee, 
May yet conjecture what I might have been, 
And think life only wanting to my fame." 

Happily life was not to be wanting to his fame, and through fame 
he was to live for ever ; and more happily still, thank God, he lived 
and died in the sure hope of a better life than the dreary immortality 
of fame. 

The Diary makes no allusion to this almost fatal illness, nor does 
it record 0*Connell's entrance either into the legal profession or into 
the state of matrimony. The former omission is supplied in the open- 
ing page of his First Fee-book, with which we shall presently gratify 
the curiosity of our readers ; and we shall account satisfactorily in a 
moment for the absence of all reference to his marriage. But, indeed, 
it has been plain all through, and we have published an observation 
of O'Connell's to this effect, that the Diary was chiefly meant as an 
incentive to regularity in rising and to steady industry in professional 
study. It was meant to serve the purpose of those Particular Examen 
Books, which can be made so serviceable to spiritual progress when 
used discreetly, according to the business-like wisdom of St. Ignatius 
Loyola. 

But why does it not set down, at least, the date of his wedding ? 
Because it closes abruptly on the 4th of June, 1802, and the wedding 
took place only at the end of that month. Perhaps just after drawing 
up " that answer in jthe injunction case of Murphy r. Baldwin," to 
which his closing entry refers, he got an answer in a different case — 
the case of Love r. Prudence. Perhaps he received that day a letter, 
in a well-known handwriting, announcing that his distant cousin, Mary 
O'Connell, was coming up from Tralee, on a visit to her married sister, 
Mrs. O'Connor, then lodging in Dame-street, Dublin. This news or 
some such cause turned the youthful counsellor's thoughts into a dif- 
ferent channel, and made him throw his diary aside for ever. 

He married, in his 27th year, June 23rd, 1 802, Mary O'Oonnell, 
daughter of Dr. O'Connell of Tralee, a remote relative of the Darrinane 
family. The marriage was performed by the Rev. Charles Finn, then 
and for more than forty years later, P.P. of Irishtown and Donny- 
brook. Why did this honour fall to him ? O'Connell seems to have 
been lodging at 14 Trinity-place, and the marriage took place at the 
residence of the bride's sister, in Dame- street ; and the Townsend- 
street chapel, now represented by St. Andrew's, Westland-row, cannot, 
even then, have belonged to the Irishtown parish. John O'Connafl 



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aCmnell. 581 

ought to. have mentioned the numher of the house in Dame-street. In 
walking through the city, as an outward sign marks for us the 
house, in Aungier-street, where Thomas Moore was born, so one 
would like to know the house in Baggot-street, where Thomas Davis 
diedy and the house in Dame-street, where Daniel O'Connell was 
married. 

We have called this a case of Love v. Prudence : for the match 
displeased Uncle Maurice, at Darrinane, who had his eye on a much 
larger dower than the clever Tralee doctor could give his child. In- 
deed he had been graciously pleased to give his nephew his choice 
between two heiresses ; and Dan's wilfulness affected permanently the 
provisions of the old man's will. But surely by making 0*Connell's 
home happy and by giving him a stimulus for steady work Mary 
brought her husband a fortune of many thousands. At a public 
dinner, given to O'Connell in Edinburgh, September 21st, 1835, one 
of the toasts proposed was *' Mrs. O'ConneU and the Roof- tree of 
Darrinane." The great Demagogue, in replying, spoke of his wife as 
" the choice of his youth, the comfort of his life, and his solace in all 
his troubles and trials. No one" (he continued) ''could struggle 
well for his country whose nest was not warm at home ; and there was 
no honey in the cup of life if not administered by the hands of those 
we love. For his own part he owed much of his public character to 
Mrs. O'Connell. When, in consequence of the chills of disappoint- 
ment and the disgust at the treacheries^ which every public man in a 
long course of life is apt to meet with, he felt himself almost driven to 
give up politics and betake himself again to that profession in which 
he had been so successful, he yielded to her earnest solicitations to the 
contrary ; and he always found himself more loved at home for con- 
tinuing the struggles of his native land." 

If the reader turns back a short space in the present volume, to 
page 511, which belongs to our August Number, he will find O'ConneU, 
on the 13th of January, 179&, expressing doubts as to whether he 
should ever be called to the bar, to which then for the first time Catholics 
were eligible. A little later he writes thus to the uncle on whom he 
had been dependent for the means of pursuing his studies. Of course 
this letter is printed here for the first time : 

••Dublin, 14 TRiNrrr-pLACE, 
<« March 1</, 1798. 
" Mt dear Uncle, 

" I Bit down to acknowledge the receipt "of two letters from you since I wrote 
last, the one of the 9th, the other of the 13th ult I have since received a letter from 
Mr. CaseT covering £56 16«. 6<2. ; a sum fully adequate to any increased expenditure, 
and greater, I will candidly confess, than my expectations. I should, indeed, hare 
known your kindness sufficiently well to be certain that you would do nothing for me 
by halves. I know not how to return you proper thanks for this last proof of your 
attention. I have already exhausted all that language could express on such oooaaions. 



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586 O'ConnelL 

I will now only say that I hope one day to be able to show that yoar faToon were not 
thrown away on ingratitude or inattention. 

*' You already know that the obeerTations contained in your first letter were un- 
necessary ; but they were and ever must be interesting to me when I recollect the 
affectionate prudence which dictated them. They were all so strictly just that I assure 
you no consideration would induce me to expose myself in any degree to the di^grmoe 
and ruin which they pointed out. 

'* By the subjoined account of the expense attending being called to the bar, yoa 
will perceire that the Bench hare decided against xetuming the twenty guiness de> 
posited for chambers. They have, howeyer, been almost driyen to the necessity of re- 
solving to build. When the buildings are to be commenced is quite another question. 

" I have done myself the honour of waiting on Lord Eenmare ; he received me 
with the greatest politeness. He has changed his intention of removing to another 
house. 

*'Mr. Day has actually been appointed to the vacant seat in the King's Bench. 
He cannot sit until his patent comes over from Bngland, which will happen in a few 
days. There is nothing new in the political world. The odium against the Catholics 
is becoming every day more inveterate. The Chancellor seems hardly disposed to 
leave them the privileges which they enjoy at present ; nor does he conceal his opinion 
on the subject. Some of the Administration would fain lay at our door the distracted 
etate of the country — a state which is partly the consequence of the ferment which 
reigns all over Europe, but chiefly, I fear, the result of the weakness and cruelty of 
their own measures. 

*' I remain, with affectionate regard to our friends at Car ben, 

'< My dear Unde, your sincerely grateful and dutiful nephew, 
"Daniel CConnell." 

TVith this letter was enclosed tlie following catalogue of '' payments 
to be made [at being called," which will have a special interest for 
those who are skilled in the " comparative anatomy " of the fees of 
the present day and this venerable bill of a himdred years ago. 





£ 8. d. 


Fine 


5 6 8 


Stamps 

Deposit for Chambers 

Treasurer ... 


10 

22 15 

4 


Sub-treasuer 


3 12 


Clerk 


8 


Gown and Wig 
Term fine ... 


5 6 8 

12 9 


Crier 


12 9 




Total £53 13 10 



Furnished thus with a sufficient quantity of " the mammon of ini- 
quity " for overcoming the last ^obstacles to the acquisition of the 
much-coveted wig and gown, we may take for granted that he worked 
hard during the remainder of his legal noviceship, or more strictly his 
** first probation," for the gaining of the silk gown may be considered 
to correspond with "religious profession." His "reception" took 
place in May, 1798. There lies before us at present a rather rough 
quarto, filled entirely with O'ConneU's handwriting. Even in the head* 



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(yConnell. 587 

ing *^ Fee-book, No. 1, Daniel O'Connell," his signature is very like 
{he autograpli affixed to his portrait, forty-six years later, in the cheap 
picture which grouped together all the Traversers of the State Trials 
of 1844. As I transcribe the opening pages textually, I may premise 
that B. B. stands for Banco Eegia or '^ King's Bench,'' and G. B. for 
'< Crommon Pleas." 34th G. 3 means the thirty-fourth year of the 
reign of George III. 

'' I was entered in Idnooln's Inn on the 30th of January, 1794, d4th 
G. 3. I kept one term in Ghray's Inn. I was called to the bar on the 
19th May, 1798, 38th G. 3, Easter Term. 

'' The judges then were: In Chancery, John Fitzgibbon, Earl of 
Clare. In B. B., John Scott, Earl of Clonmel ; William Downes, 
William TankeryiUe Ghamberlain, Bobert Day, Esquires. In C. B., 
Hugh, Lord Carleton ; Thomas Kelly, Alexander Crookshank, Mathias 
Finucane, Esquires. In Excheq., Barry, Lord Yelverton ; Peter 
Metge, Michael Smith, Denis George, Esquires. 

'' The Courts were shut during part of Trinity, 38th, G. 3., as a re- 
bellion then raged. During the same term Earl Clonmel died and 
John Wolfe, then Attorney-General, was appointed in his place, with 
the title of Lord Kilwarden. 

" The summer circuit of the year 1798 was very late. I did not go 
to it, as I was confined to my uncle's house by a violent fever, of which 
I was near to perish. 

<< During the summer vacation, 1800, Lord Carleton, Chief Justice 
of the Common Fleas, resigned. John Toler, Attorney General, was 
appointed to succeed him, with the title of Lord Norbury, but did not 
take his seat on the bench during Michaelmas Term, 1800. 

'' Lord Norbury took his seat in Hilary, 1801, as did also Mr. Luke 
Fox as one of the puisne judges of the same court in the room of 
Justice Crookshank. Fox got on the bench as the reward of his vote 
on the Union Question. He was in considerable business at the bar. 
Morose, sour, and impetuous, but a lawyer, he has risen from the 
obscure situation of an usher to a school. Toler was a pretty gentleman 
at the bar. On the bench he is ridiculous. The thing is fond of blood 
and has often reminded me that ' Nero fiddled while Bome was 
burning.' 

'' Much was expected from Wolfe, now Lord Kilwarden ; but his 
pompous inanity is insufferable. 

'' In Trinity, 1801, Sir Michael Smith was appointed Master of the 
Bolls. He is a gentleman and a scholar : polite, patient, and attentive. 
Yet he is a very indifferent judge. Tedious to a fault, the business 
multiplies, and very little is done. 

" At the end of the same term St. Geoi^e Daly took his seat as one 
of the barons of the Exchequer, in the loom of Smith, now Master of 
the Bolls. Daly is extremely ignorant, knows nothing of the law, and 

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588 O'Connell. 

has not tlie art to conceal any part of his want of knowledge. These 
qualities, added to a difficulty of enunciation, have brought him into 
contempt with the bar and the country. Yet I am told that in private 
he exhibits the talents of a rational and entertaining companion. His 
seat is also the reward of his Union services. At the bar he was 
totally unemployed. 

** But Daly rises almost into excellence when compared with Kobert 
Johnson, who in the same*term was made Judge of the Common Pleas, 
in the room of the honest old hrogwman Kelly. Johnson to an equal 
want of knowledge and discretion ^th Daly adds a peevishness of 
temper, which is as ungentlemanly in its expressions as it is undig^fied 
in his situation. I should not for my part put any confidence in this 
man's honesty. 

" In Hilary, 1802, William Smith, son to the Master of the EoUs, 
took his seat in the room of Baron Metge who has resigned. Smith 
was Solicitor-GeneraL He is a man of a logical head, and what is 
called in modern jargon a metaphysician : that is, a man whose verbal 
distinctions reach far beyond natural differences and yet are well sup- 
ported. I do verily believe Smith to be a man of talents and a lawyer. 
But his private character is chequered by ill-temper and caprice, per- 
haps the effect, in some measure, of ill health. He ought to be an 
honest man. 

"On the 28th January, 1802, John, Earl of Clare, ChanoeUor 
of Ireland, died; and he was buried this day, January 3l8t. He has 
been Chancellor since " 

And here the young barrister broke off, in order to look up the 
exact date, and never after returned to this unfinished sentence, which 
is the last of the notes prefixed to his first Fee-book though four blank 
pages remain before the catalogue of fees begins. The rather splenetic 
remarks we have transcribed were, evidently from the handwriting, 
filled in at various times, but all before O'Connell's marriage. That 
event seems to have put a stop to diary- writing and all note-taking of 
a merely ornamental description. 

The rest of the book before us — within the leaves of which lies a 
loose sheet of blotting paper which, from its peculiar colour, seems to 
have been the venerable blotting-paper used by Daniel O'Connell, 
eighty years ago— the rest of the book is made up of 170 numbered 
pages, ruled uniformly from first to last, not in red ink or by machineiy, 
but by O'Connell himself. It does credit to O'Connell's perseverance, 
regularity, and business habits. 

He has told us himself, a few pages back, that he was called to 
the bar on the 19th of May, 1798. Before a week was over he had 
quitted the ranks of the Briefless. 1:1 is first brief is dated May 24th, 
1798. Blood is thicker than water; and even to have the same name 

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aConnell. 589 

may establish a bond of sympathy. In ihQ column headed '^ Agent," 
the attorneys who figure most frequently are C. O'Connell and James 
Oonnor. Was the latter brother-in-law to O'Connell's wife ? He has 
the distinction of having given O*0onnell his first fee (£1 28. 9d.) for 
some case of Ducket v, Sullivan, regarding some promissory note. 

Each page of this Fee-book is divided into seven columns, headed 
**Date," ''Case," "Business," "Court," **£s.d." and "Eemarks.'* 
The last are very brief, such as "succeeded," "put off," "granted," 
" verdict for the Defendant," &c. 

If O'Connell had lived to write that autobiography which, accord- 
ing to his son John, he still had in contemplation in 1846, he would 
have given some account of his early earnings at the bar, such as is 
contained in the following passage from Serjeant Ballantine's recently 
published " Eeminiscences of a Barrister :" — 

" I cannot say that I burnt much midnight oil. No attorney late 
from the country ever routed me out and thrust a heavy brief into my 
hand — a circumstance which we have heard has so often been the origin 
of success to eminent lawyers. My establishment was limited. I shared 
with some half-dozen other aspirants to the bench what, in Temple 
parlance, is called a laundress, probably from the fact of her never 
washing anything. I fancy that her principal employment was walk- 
ing from my chambers to the pawnbroker's and thence to the ginshop. 
At the end of a short period my property, never very extensive, was 
reduced to little more than a pair of sheets, a teapot, and a coal-scuttle, 
over which it pleased Providence that she should tumble down stairs, 
and the injuries then sustained relieved me from her future atten- 
dance. A mischievous little urchin cleaned my boots, and was called 
clerk. My means were extremely limited, and it may interest my 
readers to know what my professional earnings were during the first 
three years of my career. I was called to the bar in June (1834), 
having attained the mature age of twenty-one the preceding March. 
Between that period and the following Christmas I made four guineas 
and a half, the second year I made thirty guineas, and the third 
seventy-five." 

The three first years of O'Connell's bar-life produced more satis- 
factory results, except the first, during which his almost fatal illne»s 
prevented him from going circuit. As he was only called at the end 
of May and as his fever caused a long break, we need scarcely count 
1798 as his first year. He only records in his book the first fee of 
£ 1 2s. 9d. in May, and then, after his recovery, two similar fees in 
November. 80 his first year is under Serjeant Ballantine's four 
guineas. 

For 1799 we find set down twenty-two fees of £1 2s. 9d. ; nine of 
£2 59. ^,\ two of £3 8s. 3d.; and one of £5 138. 9d. With some 
misgivings we translate these not veiy complicated figures into 

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590 OfConnelL 

£58 Os. 3d., as O'Connell's income for his second year at the bar. But, 
as we notice a little further on that O'Connell sets down another fee 
of £1 2s. 9d., which he had omitted at its proper date in October, 1799, 
we may give sixty pounds as the second years' earnings of this most 
brilliantly successful of barristers. 

But now the plot thickens. The fees for the year 1800, at the 
rate of eight or nine to a page, fill some nineteen pages. Entering 
into calculations which resemble the *' analysis of the bowling " which 
is sometimes given in newspaper accounts of cricket-matches, enume- 
rating such mysterious items as seven ''legbyes" and eighteen 
^* maiden overs," we find O'Connell's earnings for the year 1800 to 
be made up of 84 fees of £1 2s. 9d, 42 fees of £2 5s. 6d., and 16 fees 
of £3 8s. 3d. The last of these three items comes to £54 12s. Od, and 
each of the two first to £95 lis. Od. There was some tedious case at 
Tralee, before certain Sub-commissioners, which is entered in 
O'Connell's Fee-book thus : ** Trial of charges exhibited by Segerson 
against Captain Butler — for Butler, [52 days at £2 5s. 6d. per day, 
£118 6s. Od., and ten days at £5 13s. 9d. per day [seemingly in the 
same case, though a different attorney is named], £56 17s. 6d. Large 
sums these for a barrister of two year's standing, and they seem to 
have been overlooked by Mr. Thomas Matthew Ray, the Eepeal Secre- 
tary, in a manuscript summary of the Liberator's Fee-book, which lies 
before us. All these items make O'Oonnell's income for the year 1800 
£420 17s. 6d. 

Though the year 1801 shows an increase in each of the three classes 
of fees— £1 28. 9d, £2 5s. 6d., and £3 8s. 3d.— the number of briefs 
in each class being respectively 87, 46, and 25, and although higher 
fees begin to come in, 7 at £4 lis. Od., and 2 at £5 13s. 9d. and even 
£11 7s. 6d., the want of those long Tralee cases keeps the year 1801 
below its predecessor, O'Connell's income being only £367 8s. 6d. in the 
26th year of his age. 

In the year 1802, the rising young barrister married ; and on the 
very day of his marriage, June 23rd, he argued two cases in Chancery, 
for fees at which a London lawyer nowadays would smile contemp- 
tuously. But perhaps he was not obliged to spend his |wedding-day 
in this barbarous fashion, but only received the briefs on that day, 
along with a third in the Exchequer Court, which reminds us of a 
blunder in our transcription of 0*Connell*s Diary, at page 51.? of this 
volume. If an ex-lawyer's eye had not fallen on the passage, it would 
have gone down to posterity that O'Connell sought for authorities on 
a suit of Andila Querela, whereas here the same case is recorded by 
O'Connell's own hand in his Fee-book, **Gorham v. Cronerbuiy, draft 
writ of Audita Querela?'* 

The " unit of measurement" in these fees was £1 2s. 9d.,* which 

* This was an Irish lawyer's guinea-fee till the currency waa asBim&tadiritfitbat 
of England in 1826. Digitized byVjOOglc 



O'Connell. 591 

we may count as a goinea. The fees in 1802 increase in number : 96 
of this lowest figure, 61 of the two guinea fee, 44 of three guineas, 13 
of four guineas each, 4* of five guineas, and a ten-guinea and twenty- 
guinea fee. The whole income for tbe year 1802 amounts to £522. 
And so the increase goes on from year to year. The fee-book before 
us ends with May, 1805 ; but, in a document in the handwriting of 
Mr. T. M. Bay, O'Oonnell, speaking in the first person, continues 
these striking statistics, as follows : 

1804: £776 9s. 9d. 1805: £840 12s. Od. 1806 : £1,077 4s. 3d. 
1807 : £1,713 Is. 6d. 1808 : £2,198 15s. 6d. O'OonneU adds a 
note on these two last years, to the effect that he does not count here 
his fee as assessor to the Sheriff of Kerry at the election of 1807, 
when each of the three candidates gave him £150 ; so that his entire 
inereoie of income in that year was £1,085 17s. 3d. In like manner, 
in 1808 he received as assessor to the Sheriff of Clare £200 from each 
of the two candidates, so that his income increased that year by 
£885 14s. 3d. For the years between 1809 and 1814 the earning of 
the popular young counsellor are set down in this paper thus : 
£2,736 16s. 6d., £2,951 168. 3d., £3,047 7s. 3d., £3,028 Os. 6d., 
£3,808 7s. Od. To explain why the year 1813 falls a little below its 
predecessor, instead of improving upon it, O'Connell notes in the 
margin : '^ I lost the Oork Spring Assizes." 

One obvious conclusion follows from this present instalment of 
<' The 0*Connell Papers,'' namely, that, though Ireland showed less 
ingratitude to her Liberator than nations are wont to show to self- 
sacrificing patriots^ nevertheless he and his family suffered grievously 
in fortune by the practical abandonment of his magnificent profes- 
sional career. What, then, becomes of the vulgar, ungenerous sneers 
of The Times and his other slanderers ? 

How earnestly his family, and, above all, his devoted wife, encou- 
raged liiTTi to make personal interests subservient to the cause of his 
religion and his coimtry, will appear from letters which we are per- 
mitted to publish in our next Ntmiber. 

{To he continued,) 



Vol. z. No. HI. 36 

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{ 592 ) 



THE MONK'S PROPHECY. 

▲ VALB. 

mso'si 
OHAPTER XVn. 

IN THB OSEEN LAIHEB. 

The girls departed : an impetus given to their spirits by the thrill 
of the spring day which seemed to wake nature into a fuller life ; 
ruf^g the budding f oliage, whispering to the heart of the opening 
blossoms, dancing on the sunlit river, drawing the active principle 
hidden in mother earth into external force and beauty. The 
crows cawed, the birds sang, and youth felt that life was full of hope 
and joy to come. They called first at the hospital and learned that 
Mrs. Barry w«w progressing favourably ; then they proceeded on- 
ward through the green lanes of the country. 

" Is it not an inspiriting day ?" said Ida — ** enough to make one feel 
her immortality. My wings are actually fluttering ; and, like the poet, I 
find it greatly adds to the charm of solitude to have a fellow-creature 
to hear me praise it. I was often lonely on Sunday ; for, indepen- 
dent^as I am, I do not care to walk alone-— my guardian angel sent 
you in my way, Sydney.** 

" Gk>d sent you to me," answered Sydney ; '*I wonder where should 
I be to-day only for you. Now I feel how desolate I was until I knew 
you and Miss White. Oh ! what Sundays I had at the Cosgraves : I 
was afraid to go out, and I was beginning to fear staying within. It 
was dreadful." 

^* Indeed it was, you poor little thing. How near we were to each 
other, and yet how far! Our lives are sometimes as far apart from 
those around us as if we lived on different planets — Chidden currents 
flowing silently by. But otirs are mingled now : we can never be so 
separated again. We have become entangled in each other's thoughts. 

** I wish we had not to be separated," said Sydney ; " I wish I could 
stay where I could see you sometimes ; I am very lonely. I was 
thinking perhaps Mrs. Barry could keep me for a little while, but 
now there is no chance of that." 

" Are you not to go to your friends very soon ?" 

** No, not very soon. I wrote to Mrs. Wyndill after poor mamma's 
death; I ought to have an answer in a short time. She promised mamma 
to take care of me always. You would like her and Mr. Wyndill very 
much; she isn't like Mrs. Hasset at all." 



»> 



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The Monk^s Prophecy. 593 

'' Do not talk to me of Mrs. Hassett, Sydney; she sets my teeth on 
edge ; she must be utterly heartless ; she is the occasion of sin to Mrs. 
Bany as weU as to me ; but she is not an nnnsnal specimen of the 
genus, a social parasite.** 

'' Perhaps she had not time to come to see me," said Sydney ; ^' she 
seemed always to be greatly occupied.'* 

<' Do not madden me with your charitable interpretations/' answered 
Ida. '' If she had a human heart, she would have looked after you, 
the child of one beloved by all her family left so utterly unprotected. 
I try to practise charity, and admire it inmiensely ; but I won't be 
putting angelic constructions on sin and selfishness ; and I repeat 
emphatically, Mrs. Hassett sets my teeth on edge." 

" Well, itis no matter now,"; said Sydney, " and perhaps if she had 
come and taken me away, I would never know you and Miss White ; 
so thank Qod she didn't." 

"You are a sensible young person," answered Ida, shaking her 
head. ** Mrs. Hassett would prove a more profitable friend." 

" No," said Sydney, eagerly. " You would not say so if you knew 
her. How different I feel with you, so strong and satisfied. She 
made me xmcomfortable somehow, and sad, as if things were not half 
so beautiful as I thought them." 

'' I know the effect a clever worldly person has on a timid 
enthusiast, Sydney dear. I don't pretend to be very timid, but they 
often made me take myself to task for being a female quixote. Noble 
impulses, lofty thoughts and aims can be made to assume quite an 
absurd aspect by the witty sarcasms of one who has succeeded in his 
or her design — ^that of getting on well in the world : not, at the same 
time, that I despise getting on in the world — I should relish pros- 
perity very much — ^but I despise those who make it the end instead of 
the means. Apropos of prosperity, have you not your place in the 
country yet ?" 

•* Yes ; Nellie is in it, and minds the cow, and everything. I wish 
you saw it; 'tis a dear little spot ; not larger than Mrs. Barry's, you 
know, but covered with creepers and flowers, and the waterfall just 
near it. We were very happy there— poor mamma and I — until all 
the MacMahons were gone. There is no one there now but Mrs Gale." 

" Who is Mrs. Gale ?" 

** The housekeeper at Eathmoylan — the grandest old place ever you 
saw, with a castle, a forest, and the river running by|the side-windows; 
—and such beautiful stories about it ; — and^the picture of a yoimg man 
who died for love." 

** Weak-minded youth ! Had not such a fine constitution as I 
have. You must tell me all those stories by-and-by ; I'm not in the 
mood to appreciate a romance at present ; I should be sure to laugh 
in the most tragic part." ^ , 

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594 The Monks Prophety. 

" How oan I tell yon anything if I go into the conYont to-monow ?'' 
asked Sydney, sighing. " Was it not a loss to me poor Mrs. Bariy was 
hurt ? I am selfish to think of it that way, and I am Teiy fond of the 
nuns ; but I would rather stay where I oould see you sometimes." 

<' Have you not some money still P" asked Ida, after a pause. 

'< Yes, I have some ; and, besides, I have my pension." 

'Til lose mine soon, I'm sorry to say," answered Ida. ''Ten 
pounds is a large amount of money. But ' sufiicient for the day is 
the evil thereof.' Do you know, I have been thinking would it not be 
a pleasant arrangement if Miss White took you as a lodger for the 
present?" 

Sydney clasped her hands upon her companion's arm. " Ida, 
would she do it ? — ^would she be so good to me ? It would be like 
heaven !" 

" She is just the little person to expect every goodness from," said 
Ida ; '' mammy is a little angel left out of heaven to do good on earth: 
she is always helping someone. As you know, she is poor : at least 
she hasn't enough to enable her to be as hospitable as she would wish ; 
but you could pay her so much a week and continue to go to school as 
before. Would not that be a good plan P — she certainly would ask 
you to stay for the month with her if she could afford it." 

'• Oh ! if she would do it, Ida — I should be so happy!*' The giil's 
eyes filled with tears. 

'' Well, see if I don't manage the affair with that tact and delicacy 
for which I am remarkable," said Ida, gaily. " Though mammy is not 
that sort of person that you need be choosing your words lest you wound 
her self-love, she hasn't got any, she will just think what is best for 
you, and how much she can do for you ; and she will do it without as 
much as 'Ought IP'" 

" But would I be a great inconvenience, do you think? If I were, 
it would destroy my happiness." 

'* I do not think you would ; — she loves young people. I fancy even 
that you would be a pleasant help to her. I can't spend as much time 
with her as I should wish, and I am often pained at leaving her alone 
in the long evenings. She will be delighted, too, at my having a com- 
panion." 

" You speak as if it were certain," said Sydney, " but I feel as if 
it were too good to be true." 

'' There is a bed to be considered," continued Ida, pondering over 
ways and means, " and bed-clothes." 

" Oh, I have them, Ida. Poor mamma brought up my little iron 
bedstead and everything, and I have plenty of linen. They are all 
at Mrs. Barry's. She sent Jim with a cart to fetch them from Mrs. 
Cosgrave's." 

" That's good : difficulties are vanishing as soon as thought of, and 

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Tie Monks Prophecy. 595 

• 
we ahall have a snimner fnll of walks and talks, and can laugh at any 
world outside our own. I felt the loss of a companion very much since 
Frank went away. I wanted no one while I had Attn." 

" You are very fond of him ?" 

*' Just as insane about him as a mother over her first-bom," an- 
swered Ida, with one of her radiant smiles. " I doA't believe there is 
anyone so good as Frank, so strong, and tender, and patient, and hard- 
working. Tis all work and no play with him, poor fellow ! but, how- 
ever, it hasn't made a duU boy of him : he wiU paint a grand picture 
by- and-by— one of his own noble conceptions, and we shall end as hap- 
pily as a fairy-tale." 

" When will he return from Italy P" asked Sydney. 

" This summer, I hope ; — perhaps not until autumn. I shall be dis- 
appointed if you be gone bcriPore he arrive. I should like you to see 
my knight. Oalahad I call him, my stainless courtier." 

" I hope I shan't be gone,** said Sydney; "I would rather stay with 
you as long as I could." 

"That is the worst of attachments," answered Ida. '* Some attrac- 
tion impels two people to dasp each other's hands ; then the great 
tide of circumstances flows in between them, and they have to let go 
their hold and walk for ever more on different shores. I suppose we 
shall have to yield to that imperative current ?" 

" I won't think of it," answered Sydney. " Perhaps (Jod would 
not part us." 

After a long walk, which drew the two girls completely together, 
they approached the Almshouse again. <'We are in good time," 
said Ida. '' I prophesy that the potatoes are only just beginning to 
boil ; Mrs. Baker says aunt ' is as regular as the sun and more so.' 
Let you go on, Sydney, and I shall have a word with Miss White." 

With a palpitating heart Sydney entered Mrs. Huxton's sitting- 
room, and sat answering the old lady's queries until Ida returned. 
** All right., mignonne^^^ she said, gaily ; '< go out to mammy now, 
make yourself worthy to sit at our banquet, and do not be long." 

Sydney went out and in a moment was standing hesitating at the 
little lady's door. " dome in, dear," she said, holding out her hand 
'< Is it true you would like to remain with me for the present ?" 

" Oh, yes, if you would be so good as to keep me," answered 
Sydney, kneeling beside her. '< I wouldn't be so happy anywhere in 
the world, and I would try to be as little trouble as ever I could." 

'/ My poor child, I am only sorry I can't be of greater use to you. 
I will keep you, my dear ; — Ida explained everything. I would not 
let you pay for your own support if I were better off ; but it wiU be 
little, my dear, very little ; and perhaps it is the most economical way 
for you. You know I took to you from the first, you will be company 
to me and to Ida, and we shall get on excellently." 

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596 The Monks Prophecy. 

Sydney clasped her arms round the litUe lady's neck while the 
tears ran down her cheeks. 

<< Hush, my dear, you must not be spoiling your bright eyes, I 
like to see my young people happy." She kissed her gentiy^ and 
stroked her hair. '' We'll tell Jim to-night and he wiU bring your 
things to-morrow, dome now, run upstairs and freshen yourself; we 
must not keep Mrs. Huxton waiting dinner." 

Sydney kissed her little friend and ran joyfully up stairs to brush 
her hair. She came down again, looking so fresh and happy that Miss 
White smiled on her with infinite approval; so did Ida when they 
presented themselves at Mrs. Huzton's, and the girl dung to her with 
speechless gratitude. 

The dinner- table was arranged with care : there was fine old china, 
antique cut glass, and a few articles of crested plate ; a simple epergne 
stood in the centre filled with spring flowers, its lower plateau contain- 
ing a few oranges and American apples. With all this grandeur a 
small piece of cold roast meat with .vegetables and potatoes made up 
the dinner. When it had been done justice to, Ida placed her pie upon 
the table. 

'^ Kothing reminds me of our misfortunes so much as seeing Ida 
standing up to attend," said Mrs. Huxton, with a sigh, '< I little thought 
her father's child would have to sit to dinner without an attendant ; — 
but such is life. It was a wise man who said no one should be called 
fortunate till his death." 

'^ It is not an easy thing to distinguiBh fortune from misfortune," 
said Miss White, gently ; '* what seems material ill may be spiritual 
good, and our Ida is trained now to make the best use of fortune when 
it comes to her, which it will, please (Jod." 

'* And aunt says I have a natural talent for being cook, slush, and 
butler," said Ida, ^< I would scent a cobweb. I flatter myself that paste 
will dissolve like a very dream, and I defy any of you to say that my 
attendance was not prompt." 

" You have a talent for everything, my dear," said Mrs. Huxton, 
affectionately. " I was accustomed to such luxury myself in my young 
dftys that it made me helpless." 

''Now I am going to make some hot daret, aunt, we shall 
drink Sydney's health, and celebrate her arrival properly." 

'' I am pleased to hear Miss Ormsby is to remain with you for some 
time, Miss White," said Mrs. Huxton. '* It has been always a source 
of regret to me that Ida had no suitable companion since her brother 
left Time will change all that, I hope. As it is, those two girls seem 
marked out to be friends— both orphans and children of men in 
the same position. How different their lives would be if their fathers 
Uved !" 

''Perhaps we Are better as we are, aunt," answered Ida. '*If 



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The Monk's Prophecy. 597 

my poor father lived, I would not have ' the glorious privilege of being 
independent ;' Frank would not have the good in him so well developed; , 
you would not have me nor I you ; and I shudder to think what a place 
the Biver Almshouse would be without me. What would mammy 
do without the prop of her declining years ? Everything is for the 
best; — and there's Jim Barry's knock ; — a clap for my sentiments." 

She let in Jim, laid out his dinner for him on the kitchen-table. 
Sydney followed her, and they told l^irn of the new arrangement which 
received his entire approbation. 

Next day Jim brought Sydnejr's belongings. Miss White was 
quite pleased with the effect of the little bed in her room, and sat in 
the arm-chair Eustace MacMahon bought for Mrs. Ormsby, to show 
Sydney how comfortable she looked in it. Everything was arranged 
before nine o'clock, and then Miss White proceeded to the convent 
with her proUgie, The nuns were well satisfied at the alteration in 
their pupU*s abode. They knew Miss White, and, in any case, residing 
at the Biver Almshouse was a guarantee of respectability. 

A new, and to Sydney a delightful life commenced. She and Ida 
left about the same hour each morning — one for school, the other for 
her tuitions — and usually returned together to enjoy their dinner and 
brighten the lives of their aged friends with their glad laughter and 
merry voices. The lengthening evenings gave them time for exploring 
all places rendered remarkable by nature, art, or history, and they 
returned from their country rambles laden with ferns and wild flowers 
to decorate their little homes and improve their botanical knowledge. 

Miss White had got Sydney to unpack her trunks, and, with that 
careful supervision begot of necessity, examined their contents. The 
little lady had an inborn love for refined things, which was evident in 
her simple black dress and spotless muslins ; so the wardrobe of '' her 
child," as she called Sydney, was a thing for weighty consideration. 

She shook her head sadly as she saw the large amount of inside 
apparel, exquisitely made and trimmed by the mother's loving hands, 
and all the little etceteras which she had made in her lonely hours. 
Sydney wanted nothing, in fact, for her foreign journey but fashion- 
able external habiliments. The black silk dress, which Mrs. Ormsby 
had only worn a few times, occasioned Miss White some serious reflec- 
tions : her first work was to rip it and fold it up in tissue paper, to be 
made up for the girl when such a piece of dress was necessary. She 
also picked to pieces the mother's best cashmere and some other 
articles of her clothing; then got in a work-girl and turned, clipped, 
and fashioned so zealously that Sydney was soon in possession of two 
pretty suits at a desirably inexpensive outlay. Her eyes filled with 
tears as she tried them on, and pressed them to her lips ; but her little 
friend comforted her with many gentle words. " You must not fret, 
my child; you must do your best to be happy. We are doing just 

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598 The MonKs Prophecy. 

what your dear mother would wish; we must be careful of your 
money. You wanted a new dress and jacket, and those things would 
mildew in the trunks ; — ^you know I like to see my young people looking 
nice. That last hat Ida got is quite a trouble to me; I like to have 
my pretty pictures prettQy framed. Look at yourself now, dear, and 
see if that don't fit you nicely." 

And though the girl's heart sank when she thought of the dear 
patient mother who could never more share her joy or her sorrow, 
she had to smile through the rush of tears, and was comforted by the 
tender and sometimes half -playful wisdom of the little lady. 

It was not Mrs. Huxion and Miss White alone that felt affection 

for the two girls : all the other ladies in the Almshouse had a sort of 

property in them, and unconsciously looked on them as the two indi- 

Tiduals in whom was centred the greatest interest. They were two 

laughing streams fiowing through the quiet of their world-weary lives, 

their aged eyes followed the currents, and they speculated as to 

their course when they should have swept beyond the Almshouse 

grounds into the great wide world beyond, with its green valleys and 

barren deserts. All things were possible to the young : the future lay 

before them, letting day after day slip beneath its shut doors. Who 

knows what to-morrow may bring forth? The tide of fortune may 

force one of those mystic entrances and bear them away into higher 

and wider ways. Those who had knowledge of the instability of that 

earthly happiness they once possessed themselves, and the fickleness 

of that fortune which had left them homeless and friendless, still, 

with that insatiable desire of the human heart for human success, 

hoped for the young, and dreamed of possibilities. Their own active 

existence was past ; they sat, as it were, by the great highway of the 

world, and watched the toilers ; with sympathy, envy, or indifference, 

as their dispositions or affections prompted them. Miss White was 

ready, if ,it were but with a cup of cold water, to aid and assist the 

greatest sinner that passed her by. " The Holy One died for her," 

was her one reason for indiscriminate charity. 

Mrs. Huxton was benevolent ; but she objected to being made a 
fool of, like Miss White, and she seasoned her alms with wholesome 
advice about thrift and prudence. 

Mrs. Danvers considered charity began at home, and that it was a 
ruinous system, encouraging idleness and improvident habits, and 
merely productive of ingratitude — sentiments which were alternately 
shared and condemned by Mrs. M'Closky and Mrs. Fogarty. 

But the feeling shared in common was interest in the young girls, 
and it culminated in a party given by Mrs. Danvers, an aristocratic 
rival of Mrs. Huxton's, to the whole community. 



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The Monk's Prophecy. 599 



CHAPTER XVm. 

A DINHSB FAHTT. 

Mbs. Dajtyebs' entertainment was considered worthy of much time 
and thought : from her knowledge of the habits of the place she was 
well aware her five o'dock tea would be dinner to the guests as well 
as herself; so of necessity it should be, and was expected to be, 
substantial. To save trouble and confusion all the viands were cold. 
There was a piece of ham, steeped and smoked carefully, which Mrs. 
Danvers fondly hoped would pass as one of Matterson's ; a veal pie 
(if the veal was not very well fed, the pie was excellently made) ; there 
was a fine pudding made after a receipt for which the hostess was 
remarkable ; and cream of which any dairywoman might be proud, 
made of com fiour, coloured with saffron. This banquet, laid out with 
care, looked very inviting, and Mrs. Danvers considered that if she 
could give her guests a little brandy punch, as a stirrup-cup, her 
banquet would be a gastronomical triumph. She had been presented 
with a bottle of brandy some time before, and she now held it up to 
the light to see if there were enough to produce. If she had four 
glasses, it would be sufficient — half a glass for each — the girls would 
not take any. It would be a shame, though, if she could not press 
Mrs. Fogarty to a second glass, she would surely expect it, she was so 
unladylike. Mrs. Danvers determined to measure it — that would be the 
safest way. Accordingly she filled glass after glass, pouring them into a 
jug, and to her extreme pleasure found she had five glasses, and con- 
sequently could treat her guests to a beverage undeniably expensive. 
She proceeded to put the brandy back again into the bottle, but, woe 
unutterable ! — a few drops of milk had remained in the jug, and the 
desired liquor had all the appearance of the lacteal fiuid. Mrs. 
Danvers sat down to contemplate the catastrophe and recover the 
shock ; she felt justifiable anger against Mrs. Fogarty whom she re- 
garded as the cause of the ruin. " Only for her," she muttered, ** I needn't 
have measured it ; as if one good wineglass of punch isn't enough 
for any woman I" The brandy was of no use now ; she could not pro- 
duce it before her guests, who would be very likely to guess how it 
happened, and who would be only too glad to have something to say 
derogatory of the banquet of which they willingly partook — a custom 
which prevails in aU polite society. 

On their way to the feast Mrs. Huxton and Ida called in at Miss 
White's. Everyone was arrayed in her best. Ida had put plaid 
bows on her black grenadine; her aunt looked very dignified 
in a wonderfully preserved moire antique ; Miss White was her usual 
self, simple and spotless ; but she made Sydney put on her mother^s 
corals and other adornments. 

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6oo The MonKs Prophecy. 

''Take your Indian shawl, my dear/' said Mrs. Huxton to 
Sydney ; '^ and you'll see Mrs. Danvers peering at it immediately." 

" But 'tis so old and faded," answered Sydney. 

" No matter, my dear, it cost money once ; 'tis not every family 
that possesses an Lidian shawl; it is respectable in a wardrobe." 

" It belonged to grandmamma," said Sydney ; '' it used to be 
wrapped about me when I was a baby." 

*' That is just the thing to tell Mrs. Danvers," said Ida. '* To have 
had a grandmother that was the actual owner of an Indian shawl im- 
plies regal style in a progenitor. You must belong to a distinguished 
line, Syd. Was it not cruel of that foreign grandm^ of mine not to 
have given me something to flaunt in the eyes of the world ? I fear 
she was not quite the thing. Aunt is dumb about my mother." 

" I know little about her," said Mrs. Huxton, in a rather annoyed 
tone, '^ except that she was, I believe, a very good woman, and a beau- 
tiful one." 

" Well, 'tis a satisfaction that I have inherited both traits," 
answered Ida, laughing. '' Are not virtue and beauty as good any 
day as an Indian shawl, though they may not indicate ancestral 
honours so brilliantly ? Come now, let us join the festive throng." 

Sydney had brought down the shawl and wrapped it softly about 
Miss White. 

'* Very well, my dear, I'll be the lay figure to display your finery," 
said the little lady. They moved out, and proceeded to Mrs. Danvers* 
ab ode, a few doors below them. 

That lady was presiding in her room with infinite suavity and 
hospitable satisfaction, waiting till all her guests were assembled. 
The tea was fusing under a handsome crochet cosy, the kettle was 
quite audible in the kitchen, singing merrily, the steam lifting the 
cover and causing a rapid succession of little taps. When every one 
had arrived, the hostess^ed the teapot, and the entertainment began. 

For a while there was a lull in the conversation, broken by the 
clatter of knives and forks, and ejaculatory expressions of approval of 
the cookery. 

** I never eat a better pudding in my life," said Mrs. Fogar^. 
" Perhaps if there was less flavour of laurel leaf, it would be better 
still." 

*• That would simply ruin it," replied Mrs. Danvers ; ** I go exacfly 
by the receipt. I remember at a dinner-party I gave one Christmas 
eve at home, Mrs. Colonel Ponsonby took such a fancy to it I had to 
write out the receipt for her that very night." 

" I wonder who is the Mrs. Colonel," said Mrs. M'Olosky, in a low 
tone, to Ida. " We didn't hear of her before. I hadn't any grand 
acquaintances, so I can't be raising them from the dead." 
•' Who is dead, Mrs. M'Closky f " asked Mrs. Huxton. 
" Julia Martin's husband," repUed Mrs. ^'Clodk^^ r^^ 



The Monk's Prophecy. 6oi 

indeed, she needn't grudge him to Gk>d : he led her a cruel life, the 
dirty savage, sporting and spending till every halfpenny of her fine 
fortune was gone. 'Tis an ease to the world he's dead." 

" 'Twas a wonder he died, then," said Mrs. Fogarty, " or did any- 
thing so reasonable. Those sort of people usually live for ever." 

" Gk)d have mercy on him," said Miss White ; " 'tis an awful thing 
to meet death unprepared." 

"I ought to know well what sporting costs," remarked Mrs. 
Huxton. *' My father kept a pack of hounds at one time, it was 
something enormous ; — and such an amount of horses I I had my own 
saddle-horse in those days. Well, weU, times are changed." 

"And so are we," said Mrs. M'Closky. ** We would hardly want 
a saddle-horse at this time of our lives. I'd like to see you mounting 
one now, Mrs. Huxton — he, he, he." 

''I hope I understand too well what is becoming in one of my 
years, to attempt such a thing," answered Mrs. Huxton, with dignity. 

"I was very fond of driving; I was too nervous to ride," said 
Mrs. Danvers. '* I remember one day the horses ran away with me, 
and ever after I was afraid to go out without the coachman." 

'' Lord, listen to her making believe she drove a pair," whispered 
Mrs. M^Closky. " Wouldn't she kill you ?" 

When tea was over and the remains removed by the assistance of 
Jim Barry, who was major domo at all such entertainments, the guests 
played cards, looked over albums, or talked of bygone days, laughing 
gently over remembrances of fifty years ago, speaking of friends over 
whom the grave-stones had whitened, as if they had gone out on the 
unretuming tide but yesterday. One old lady mixed up one genera- 
tion with another, confusing the uncles with the nephews. ''And 
who was Pat of Moy*s father?" she would ask, dreamily. ** Was it 
Pat of Gregg? They were all my own people, but there were so 
many of them I forget now. Ah, 'twas he was the pleasant fellow ; 
his mother wouldn't let him into the army except they made a colonel 
of him at once ; — ^a very pleasant fellow, and he was very fond of me 
once. I was a nice girl that time ; dear, dear, 'tis a sad world." 

•* *Tis a pity we don't stay young and handsome for ever," said 
Mrs. M'Olosky. " 'Twas well for me I was never a beauty. I needn't 
be reading the lamentations over myself." 

" I wouldn't care tabe young again," answered the old lady. " I'm 
tired ; I'd like to go home— home — ^there's no place like home," she 
murmured on, indistinctly, sometimes half-lifting one of her thin, 
worn hands that was crossed over the other, letting it f aU again with 
a sad patient gesture that struck Ida as being inexpressibly touching. 

She got up and sat on a little footstool near her. '' How well you 
remember things, Miss 0'(}orman," she said. ''You are as good as 
an old story-book." 

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6o2 The Monks Prophecy. 

*^ I remember a good deal, my dear, that happened long ago. 'Tib 
company to me to bring the old times back and the old people. IH 
soon be with them, very soon ; — ^'tis easy to tire me." 

** I will go home with you whenever you wish/' said Ida. 

*' Thank you, my child ; I think 'tis time for me. You won't mind 
my going so soon, Mrs. Danvers P I had a pleasant evening, veiy 
pleasant ; — ^but I am a little tired now." 

" You must take a glass of brandy punch before you go," said 
Mrs. Danvers, who was thoroughly hospitable ; '' it will make you 
sleep." She took her out to the little kitchen where Jim was setting 
things in order, got some hot water, and, standing at the press, made 
a smaU glassful of the soporific beverage in a china cup, so that the 
milky appearance might escape all remark. The unmistakable odour 
permeated the house, causing Mrs. Fogariy and Mrs. M'Olosky to 
elevate their nostrils with desire and curiosiiy, and awakening feelings 
of self-complacency in Mrs. Danvers, who was well satisfied that her 
undisplayedlluxuries should become apparent. Warmed and refreshed 
by the unwonted stimulant, the old lady departed, accompanied by Ida 
and Sydney, who gave her in charge to the woman who was Tninding 
her and returned to Mrs. Danvers. 

The evening was an undoubted success. All were in their best 
humour, and were more or less communicative about that portion of 
their lives which had been passed outside the Almshouse, painting it, 
perhaps, in colours too vivid ; putting in, half -unconsciously, a few 
touches, a few exaggerations, to heighten the effect and increase the 
contrast between the past and present. Even Mrs. Huxton, who was 
very reticent about her brother's affairs, spoke of the time his wife 
died, the coming home of the children, his death, and the break- 
ing of the bank in which her own and his money was lodged. She 
confessed how delighted she was when elected to fill a vacancy in the 
Almshouse, how she gathered the fragments of her fortune together, 
and so was able to educate and bring up the orphans. " I would be 
very content," Mrs. Huxton concluded, with a sigh, " only for Ida." 

** Gbd will take care of Ida," said Miss White. " The world is 
not all sadness and temporal ruin. God will give great things to Ida, 
because she will use great things for his honour. Is not that the way, 
dear?" 

** Of course it is, mammy," answered Ida ; " I believe in my Cas- 
sandra. Two young princes in disg^se will come to Sydney and me. 
The story of Cinderella will pale b^ore ours, and the Biver Almshouse 
will become a land flowing with tnilk and honey. I often plan out aU 
I would do if I came in for a great fortune." 

** What would be the first thing, Ida ?" said Mrs. Danvers, smiling. 

" I would lay in such a supply of coals," replied Ida, " that there 

would be no question ever again of sparing them. I'd have fires 

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The Monk's Prophecy. 603 

eveiywliere there was a fire-place, and put a end to all cold, black 
diasms." 

*' A good fire is great company/' said Miss WUte. '' I'll walk 
after yon, my dear, and poke them up as soon as you have them down." 

'' Eire is thought/' answered Ida, '' just fancy yourself sitting be- 
fore an empty, well polished grate on a dark evening; are you not dense 
and depressed and altogether different from that sentient, fire-lighted, 
and fire-coloured being with its delicate fancies and lofty conceptions? 
I wonder is there any Persian blood in me ? Tm a fire- worshipper.*' 

*< There's a rise in coals, I'm told," said Mrs. Fogarty, ''arise 
of three shillings in the ton." 

At about nine o'clock Mrs. Danvers produced her claret-cup and a 
plate of biscuits; then the party broke up, pleased with themselves 
and each other, and satisfied that they had impressed their listeners 
with the desirable knowledge that their families had been of con- 
siderable importance. Mrs. Fogarty and Mrs. M'Olosky canvassed the 
merits of the claret-cup on their way home. The latter remarked 
that it must be for the sake of the smell Mrs. Danvers kept the 
brandy, when she did not produce a taste of it ; not that she cared 
much for brandy punch herself, she thought good whiskey as nice 
anyday ; " but grandeur, Mrs. Fogarty, there's nothing like gran- 
deur in these days." 

Ida and Sydney walked up and down near the slow whispering 
river, in whose crystal depths the reflected stars were trembling, 
waiting till Jim Barry had restored the chairs to their various owners. 
A pure, pale moon was contrasted with the flicker of the gas-lamps. 
The rattle of cabs, the steady roll of tramcars broke the silence of the 
night. 

** Did you enjoy the evening, Sydney?" asked Ida. 

'* Yes," answered Sydney, '* but is it not a little sad to hear them 
all talking of the past as if there were nothing in the present or the 
future?" 

*' The rise or faU of the markets is about their only interest in the 
present," said Ida, '' and the future they look to lies beyond the stars. 
Do you know, I often envy them ; the fever of life over, the desire for 
earthly happiness changed into patient expectation of divine rest. 
They are veiy good, notwithstanding some very apparent little faults 
and weaknesses. They have all been tried, bereft of home and friends ; 
but they are patient, kind, and religious ; how I would like to fill their 
meagre purses, and do away with pinching for the remainder of their 
days! It would delight me ^to see Mrs. Fogarty able to take a big 
wine-glassful of punch every night. Poor old ladies ! — and yet they 
aren't to be pitied, they are near God." 

'' Indeed they are kind and good," said Sydney ; — " of course we 
are not speaking of Miss White or Mrs. Huston, but of the others. I 

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6o4 The Monk's Prophecy. 

like old people ; I can'fc bear to see them made little of. The wmy 
some people speak of them as old things and old cats always pains me. 
But must you not have been lonely sometimes, Ida, without anyone 
young to speak to ? I think I should." 

"Well, so I was often. After Frank went, I felt a hunger] of 
the heart; then I'd go to mammy, and tell her of my interior 
desolateness, or, to define it properly, my discontent ; and we would 
have a beautiful talk over divine and human ways till her sweet wisdom 
had changed my mean sadness into hope ; she taught me how to think 
and to be strong." 

*' She does not think there is anyone on earth like you," said 
Sydney, " and I am sure there isn't." 

" I know she doesn't," answered Ida. " I wish I were the girl 
mammy sees. I am not good sometimes, Syd ; I get tired of everything 
—of poverty, of being looked down on, of my monotonous life. Per- 
haps it was hearing aunt descanting so often on our ancient glory that 
put false ideas into my head, but I feel out of my element, and as if I 
were born out of place somehow. It is not that I am ashamed to 

^ort ^I love to work, I honour those that work — ^but I resent being 

looked down on because I earn my bread. Oh, 'tis such an ungener- 
ous world ! I meet with impertinence from man, woman, and child 
because I try to help myself : the mother treats me with lofty polite- 
ness or ignores me, the ^hild tells me I am only a music-mistress and 
not a lady, and the gentleman offers me sundry attentions if he be un- 
observed. The same man never offers them a second time," she 
added, with a laugh; " but, Sydney, it is hard to bear sometimes." 

Sydney leaned her head against the girl's shoulder as they walked 
up and down arm-in-arm. " How can you bear it ?" she said, ** and 
when will it end for you ?" 

" Perhaps never. I sometimes picture myself living on here year 
after year tilll am a faded old lady like Mrs. Fogarty. I can't even 
promise myself to be pretty like mammy. If she heard me now, she 
would tell me to look at the silver side of my doud when I was done 
with the dark side. I seldom get downhearted, thank God ; I have a 
grand organisation, which is very productive of good spirits : in fact, 
I incline to denounce weak-hearted cats who get cast down over their 
difficulties ; — and I have faith in Frank." 

" I wish I could work,*' said Sydney. 

" There will be no occasion," replied Ida, " you wiUhave a grand 
life, and will be married to some bejewelled rajah in the mountains of 
the moon." 

<< I would rather stay here if I could work," said Sydney, sighing. 

" Ah, you fickle fairy, would you give up the old friends for the 
new ones ?" 

<< But don't you understand, it was poor mother knew them so weUy 

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Father Rydet^s Poems. 60 

Ida ; I was but a child, and only remember them the last time they 
were at CSastleishen for a couple of months. Eustace was the only one 
I knew so well." 

*' And would you not be glad to see Eustace ? — and you are fond 
of Mrs. WyndiU." 

" Yes, indeed, I love them both, but I would rather stay here." 

" Ah, you foolish girl, 'tis well for you to have them to take care 
of you. It is not so easy to earn one's bread or get it to earn, as idle 
people fancy when they counsel others to work, and you are not consti- 
tuted to elbow your way through the world as I am. There is Jim 
departing ; come on until we lock the gate.** 

They wished Jim good-night, secured the gate, and then with a 
warm embrace separated and went to their respective homes. 

{To he continued.) 



FATHER RYDER'S POEMS. 

SINCE Denis Florence Mac Carthy, more than thirty years ago, pub- 
L'shed his first dainty quarto of ** Ballads, Poems, and Ljrrics" — 
which, with all the rest of his original poetry, has just been re- 
issued in a cheap and popular form — we know of few more exquisite 
collections of poems than this elegant little volume, published any- 
where, and certainly none in Ireland. Sir Samuel Ferguson's '• Lays 
of the Western Gad," and Judge O'Hagan's ** Song of Roland," ap- 
peared under the auspices of London publishers ; and now by way 
of reprisals a Dublin firm has the credit of producing in a worthy garb 
the poems of an English Oratorian, the most distinguished of the living 
disciples of Cairdinal Newman. Father Ryder has hitherto been known 
only in the austerer regions of theology. The late Dr. Russell of 
Maynooth used to speak with admiration of the domestic and amicable 
controversy carried on some years ago, chiefly in the Dublin Review, 
between Dr. W. G. Ward and Father Ryder asa most remarkable ex- 
hibition of intellectual subtlety, especially on the part of the younger 
combatant. Many powerful vindications of Catholic truths against 
the assaults of contemporary "philosophers" have been contributed 
by Father Ryder to the higher periodicals ; and his recently published 
volume entitled " Catholic Controversy," which has rapidly reached 
a third edition, is a marvellous condensation of accurate learning and 

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6o6 father Ryder^s Poems. 

solid argument, and, in spite of its moderate dimensions, is one of the 
chief contributions to the polemical literature of our time. 

The peculiar grace and vividness of his prose style, and his mani- 
fest skill in the manipulation of those more delicate shades and tints 
of diction in which prose almost glides into poetry, make one less sur- 
prised to discover that Henry Ignatius Dudley Byder is not a theolo- 
gian merely but a poet as well. 

One of the most consummate living masters of the theory and prac- 
tice of poetry has said that ''poetic diction has in recent times been 
refined into a singular exquisiteness and expressiveness ;" and he adds 
most truly that '* the very charm of this diction is sometimes a seduc- 
tion and draws the reader's attention, and perhaps the poet's no less, 
unduly from the subject-matter to the language.*' Father Byder 
seems to us to have just stopped short of this danger. ^Nothing of the 
wilful obscurity of a certain set of contemporary poets nor the lite- 
rary afEectations of the same and others. Matthew Arnold is perhaps 
the poet — for he m a poet as well as a writer of perfect prose— Matthew 
Arnold's poetic diction is that to which the Oratorian poet's style bears 
the closest resemblance, even as in external appearance and size the 
book before us reminds one of the delightful little volume of " Selec- 
tions from the Poems of Matthew Arnold," which is one of the last 
and daintiest volumes of the *' GK)lden Treasury " series. 

This, too, is a volume of selections — '' a selection from compositions 
whose dates range over a quarter of a century." The very brief pre- 
face which makes this statement is finished in a single sentence more. 
''The author feels that the earliest date thus indicated could never 
have afforded a solid plea for indulgence ; and still less now, when he 
deliberately accepts the responsibility of publication : this much, how- 
ever, it may be as well for him to say." Some readers would have 
been thankful for a third sentence, giving a hint as to the chronological 
order of the poems. We suspect that a good many of the earliest are 
placed first. *' The "Workhouse '* we remember many years ago in an 
English magazine. Yet the first of all, "The Poet's Purgatory," 
owes probably its perilous position to the poet's partiality. Like many 
parents, he may be injudicious in his affection ; for our part, with a 
view to the average reader, we should have preferred a different 
arrangement of the contents, though the opening poem is one 
of the most original and most poetical. All through, indeed, 
Father Byder is no mere writer of pious verses, but a cultured and 
artistic poet, showing his devotion to the craft even in the choice of 
his themes and in his mastery of a great variety of metres. For 
instance, with the exception of a little piece in the same melodious 
stanza as "The Poet's Purgatory," the first dozen poems represent as 
many distinct metres ; and these contain no specimen of the author's 
excellent blank verse, which is anything but blank, and of his remark- 



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Father Ryder* s Poems. 607 

able Buooees in the sonnefc f onn. This freedom from monotony in the 
material shape of his verses has a far deeper influence on the poef 
inspiration than the herd profane oould dream. 

When we oome to coll a flower here and there in the poet's garden, 
we are perplexed, so much does the effect depend on the skilful combi- 
nation of many subtle shades of colour in each bed of flowers. A 
blossom or two, plucked when the gardener^s back was turned, would 
have been a poor memento to bear away from those glorious terraces 
of flowers, sloping down from Baronscourt to its lake, and shining with 
such a dazzling brightness (both the lake and the flowers), in the hot 
though breezy simshine of a certain bygone '' munificent August/' 

'Hiere is much quaint beauty in ''The Unbidden Guest" (page 
67) ; but the rhyming of the first stanza, as in two or three other 
places through iJie volume, disappoints the ear. '* Old Age " (page 
80), furnishes our first extract, though it is too long to be all given, and 
Fatiier Ryder's poems suffer from not being studied in aU their parts 
together. They are not constructed (like the Gbeat Eastern, was it P) 
in independent compartments that can sink or swim on their own ac- 
count. Is not that a striking simile which describes old age as life 
with aU the music gone out of it, the moments of an old man's days 
merely repeating themselves " with nought of music save the beat f " 

Would to God that I might die 
Bre the light hat left the eky, 
Bre kind handt haTe oeaaed to pre«, 
And ejee haTe lost their tende r n e ae : 
Better far to leare behindj 
Much I care for than to find 
AU I care for paased away, 
With the light of yesterday. 
Let me go nnoe go I mutt, 
Bre time's Angers in the dust 
Hare writ all my joys as done, 
And the moments as th^ ran 
Only their sad selTes repeat. 
With naught of music saTe the heat. 
When I bid the world '< good-bye,*' 
I would greet it with an eye 
For its shifting colours keen. 
Its interchange of shade and sheen, 
The eager green of Hndlmg spring, 
And autumn's russet mellowing ; 
Not a fragrant flower or fruit 
But should yield a soft salute 
To a sense where memory stiU 
Doth its subtlest charm distil. 
Making life a golden mase 
Of half unfallen garden days. 
Let me go ere erery nook 
I hare liyed in hath a look 



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6o8 Father Ryder's Poems. 

Of utter dearth which none can fill 
Of the Imng, well or ill. 
When I go, ah, let me leaye 
Here and there a heart to grieye 
For a part of its old life, 
That a comrade in its strife, 
A sharer in its daUy mirth. 
Treads no longer on the earth/ 
Now and then my name should dip 
Among friends from Up to lip, 
Coupled with, "it was hU way 
Thus to look or this to say ;" 
With perhaps a whispered prayer 
That might reach me other where. 
Whilst I Utc I fain would be 
All there eyer was of me. 
No fragment of existence merely. 
For what I had been cherished dearly. 
Whose formal death you scarce deploro, 
The real was so long before. 

This is not the end yet, but we break off to emphasise the pamge 
wHch foUowB, where the poet shows himself a poet-priest. Cardinal 
Wiseman wrote some touching lines in wHch an orphan pleads for 
special pity from the Heart of Jesus on the score that orphanhood was 
a sorrow which the Man of Sorrows Himself had never borne. Even 
by his death-bed stood his Mother. A similar strain of thought rons 
through the continuation of Father Byder's Uttle treatise 2>* &iw<?fc«^ 

ForgiTe me, Sayiour, if I plead 
That though thy pangs were hard, indeed. 
And all thy body racked and wrung. 
Some pains Thou hadst not dying young. 
I know that 'neath the oliye's shade, 
A secular weight on Thee was laid; 
The bitterness of ages past 
Into thy cup of life was cast, 
And aU time's miseries yet to come 
Wrought in thy mystic martyrdom ; 
Yet scarce was middle age begun. 
When Thou hadst aU thy labours done. 
The Btemal Years in mortal span 
Waxed from the child into the man ; 
It was not meet that Gk)d should wane 
From man into the child again ; 
And so the feet that Mary kissed 
The withering touch of age hare missed. 
And not a golden hair was gray 
Upon thy Crucifixion day. 
High on the crest of manhood's hill 
Thou didst thy ministry f ulfllf 

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Father Ryder* s Poems. 609 

Winning thy victory in the light : 
Whilst I upon the slopes of night 
Creep shuddering down, no yictory won, 
Or none that I dare count upon. 

Another thin layer of prose to ccdl attention to the freshness and 
fulness of onr poet's variation on Moore's Irish Melody '' I saw from 
the beach." He resigns himself to the possibility of working on till 
set of son : — 

Yet if it be thy will, 'tis beet 

I so should enter on my rest ; 

Piecemeal, as some, thy martyrs, died, 

But Thou wert standing by their side. 

Oh, stand by me when round me press 

The sorrows of my loneliness. 

When my sick heart is gasping wide. 

As when the ocean's refluent tide 

IieaTes some poor harbour bare and high. 

Emptied of all the minstrelsy 

Of dancing waves that leap and play 

A mile out yonder in the bay. 

A long farewell, thou treacherous sea. 

That never more may flow for me, 

Whose guerdon is the refuse left 

To rot in many a rocky cleft. 

And the sad drip of sullen tears. 

The requiem of buried years ; 

And the dark slime of fond regret 

No husbandman found fruitful yet. 

Or only one : if but thy hand 

Vouchsafe to touch the barren strand. 

Fair crops shall wave of golden com. 

And vineyards clothe the rocks forloniy 

Or might have done a while ago— 

Methinks myself I pity so. 

That so I might myself assure 

That one must pity me yet more. 

Although too late from wasted soil 

To win return of wine or oil, 

I know there is another sea. 

Unwearied Love's infinity. 

To fill when other loves depart, 

The thirsty hollows of the heart. 

We have referred to the great yarieiy of metres, styles, and sub- 
jects represented in this Yolume, from '* The Workhouse " in the 
spirit and metre of George Crabbe, to " Discontent " in the metre, if 
not in the spirit, of In Ifemoriam. The Oratorian poet seems to us to 
succeed best in blank verse — which, however, he most judiciously uses 
yeiy sparingly — and in his sonnets, of which he is veiy much more 
liberal. Professor Conington, in making up his mind as to the metre 
of his projected version of Yirgil, decided against blank verse>on ther 

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6 1 o Father Ryder^s Poems. 

ground that only to one in a centuxy is it given to write really good 
blank verse. Iliere is some truth in this view; and certainly the 
blank verse that really pleases will have cost the poet more pains than 
the most difficult rhyming could have involved. '' Einsiedeln " is a 
beautiful poem in this perilous measure, which was also chosen, some- 
what inappropriately but with full success, from a quaint stoiy trans- 
lated from the Pia Eilaria of Father Gazet, S J., on which curioaa 
book Father Byder wrote a delightful paper in The Month some 
years ago. This story of " The Little Mass-servers of Santarem," was 
proposed by Southey to Miss Caroline Bowles, as a fit theme for her 
graceful muse in one of those letters that Professor Dowden has 
recently edited with perhaps greater care than they deserved. Miss 
Bowles (not yet Mrs. Southey), told the story well in that simple and 
musical stanza — a quatrain of heroic lines, rhyming alternately, and 
followed by a couplet— of which the examples that occur to me are 
Mrs. Hemans' <' Cross in the Wilderness," and the two first poems in 
Mr. Aubrey de Yere*s new volume which must be introduced to omr 
readers next month. *' D. C.,'' whose initials have not appeared often 
enough in our pages, told the same pretty story very prettily in 
Th$ MeiMnger of the Saered Eeart in the metre of <' Evangeline," and 
except in that most exquisite poem we have never seen more readable 
<' English hexameters." 

Wordsworth, Bossetti, and sundry other sonneteers have made the 
sonnet speak for itself in propria persona. Father Byder prefixes to 
his sonnets a sort of preface and apology, but not in the form of a 
sonnet We may listen to his theory of ** sonnet writing," before 
examining his practice : — 

Poets erer on tho watch 

Any dainty thought to catoh. 

That across their path may flit, 

When they onoe hare captured it, 

In a cage of quaint denoe, 

Woren with contexture nice, 

Very much rejoice to show it ; 

But, alas ! when least tb^ know it, 

Oftentime the cage alone 

Meets the eye ; the thought has flown : 

And eren when the thought is there, 

Much that made it rich and fair 

Is with handling lost or frayed, 

While thought is into matter mado^ 

Lo, the bird that in the air. 

Gaily fluttering here and there, 

Pilled the cloister of the wood 

With a rapture unwithstood. 

Caged is dumb and like to die ; 

And the golden butterfly, 

Once 'mid flowers a winged flower. 

In a childiA tyr^f. pow*. ^^^ ^^ ^ GoOglc 



Father Ryder's Poems. 6 1 1 

TbrilU ita dull and bloonileaf wingi, 

Pftlett of all pallid things. 

Fairest thoughts were meant to giTe 

Colour to the life we lire, 

Bj the quiet mental eje 

To be enjoyed unconsciously ; 

But when once bj art expressed 

Die poor captives half confessed. 

Father Bjder's sonnets are of the most orthodox form, except that 
he rather affects the final couplet, to which some pharisaical purists 
object as giving to the sonnet an epigrammatic turn altogether foreign 
to its nature. 

*' Some friends are living yet, but ah, gray head, 
How full is thy ' memento of the dead.' " 

What shall our samples be 7 The beautiful trio to Cardinal New- 
man we shall make an opportunity of quoting in another context. 
The noyena of sonnets to St. Philip Neri ought to be studied together 
as forming one complete and very perfect poem. Let our choice fall 
on the first of three personal sonnets, which, with the Cardinal New- 
man sonnets, ought to have found a place somewhat earlier, so as to 
have all the translated pieces occupying the last pages of the book. 
Some Bice or Beatrice seems to have died in India, on the 2nd of 
August, 1877 — '' youngest of seven, with all her life before, so lately 
wife and mother, and now dead." Does the third line mean that she 
sent home her photograph to the loving friends she was never to re- 
join in the old country ? 

We knew the orbit of our darling star 

Would hide it from us for a weary while. 

And fed our yearning on a pictured smile, 

A reflex gleam that floated from afar ; 

But now an interdict Divine doth bar 

Its ever dawning in our wistful ken, 

Till we, too, vanish' from the eyes of men 

To dwell immortal where the angels are. 

Old paths grow dim ; where once in life wo trod 
Our weary eyes a quenchless sorrow blinds ; 
In the deep shadow of earth's *' never more " 
Fond memory sits flngering her trifles o*er ; 
Our star the while its perfect orbit finds. 
Girding for ever round the throne of God. ; 

The title of this book is ''Poems: Original and Translated." The 
translations from Dante and Petrarch, many of which we have com- 
pared with the originals, seem to be remarkably successfuL The few 
poems from the Gennan we have to treat on their own merits, and in 
thexhselvee they are very musical and pleasing. But in this depart- 
ment Father Byder's great achievement is his version of the '< Philo- 

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6i2 Father Ryder^s Poems 

mela/' whicli has sometimes been rattribuied to St. Bonayentore, but 
which seems to be the work of John of Hoveden, about whom the 
poet, as he condescends to indulge us with a little prose at the end of 
his book, might have furnished us with some more information. 

Tliis poem occupies more than twenty pages, and we can only give 
a mere fragment as a specimen. It cannot be appreciated except by 
reading* side .by side the original with all its rich double rhymes. 
Doing so, one will often marvel how the Oratorian Father has con- 
trived to turn certain difficult stanzas into such racy and idiomatic 
English. Here are a few stanzas of what even the unsympathetic 
Satwrday Review ^seX\& *^ a masterpiece of mediaeval mysticism/' and 
of which a far higher authority has written to us in reference to this 
first English version : "The 'Philomela' is a true voice from the 
Ages of Faith, and proves that they were in at least as great a degree 
Ages of Love." 

Tune liquescit anima tota per amorem, 
Parida contideraos omnium auctorem 
Yagientom puerum juzta nostrum morem, 
Et curare Teterem Telle Be languorem. 

Plorant ergo clamitat : <'0 font pietatis, 
Quia te pannis induit dir» paupertatis? 
Tibi quia consul uit, sio te dare gratis 
"SCvKL lelus Tehemens, ardor charitatis ? 

Digne zelus veheraens est hie ardor dictus, 
Gujus est dominio rex caslorum Tictus, 
Cujus Sanctis vinculis captus et constrictui 
Pauperis infantuli panis est amictus. 

O praedulcis parrule, puer sine pari 
Felix cui datum est te nunc amplexari, 
Pedes, manuft lambere, flentem oonsolariy 
Tula in obeequiis jugiter morari 

Heu mi, our non licuit mihi demulcere 
Yagientem puerum et cum flente flere. 
Bios artus teneroa sinu confoTere 
Ej usque cunabulis semper assidere f 

Puto pins parrulus h«c non abhorreret, 
Immo more parruli forsan arrideret, 
St flente pauperculo fletu condolaret 
Et peocanti f aeile Tenia f averet 

Felix qui tunc temporis matri singulac ' 
Potuisset precibus ita famulari, 
X7t in die sineret semel osculari 
Suum dulcem parrulum eique jocari. 

O quam libens balneum ei prsparassem, 
O quam libens hnmeris aquam apportasaem. 
In boc libens virgini semper ministrassem, 
Pauperisque parruli pannulos laTassem. 



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Father Ryder's Poems. 6 1 3 

Except that glorious dissyllabic rhjndng, which in the^colder^and 
omter EngHsh tongue is impossible save as a Umr de faree in a diort 
poem, Father Byder represents the old monkish poet yeiy Tigorously 
line for line^ The foregoing quatrains run thus in English : — 

Her heart in loTe'a strong fire begins to liquef j, 
Quirering as it sees the Lord of earth and skj 
Become a Babe that cries as other babies cry, 
That He might heal our wounds and ancient malady. 

Weeping, cries she then, " Fount of piety, 
Who has dared to put such poor rags on Thee ? 
Who has counsel giren to giTe all for me. 
But the almighty zeal of burning charity ? 

What so fit a name for such Ioto is found. 
Underneath whose might heayen's king lies bound ? 
In the swathing bands clasping tightly round. 
See the holy chains lore's strong hands hare wound. 

Sweetest little one, Babe beyond compare, 
Happy who is suffered Thee to tend and bear, 
Hands and feet to kiss, grief to soothe and share, 
Spending all his days in such loring care. 

Ah, me, that I may not have the duty dear, 
To console his anguish, paying tear for tear. 
His tender infant frame to cherish and to cheer, 
Whilst his cradle-bed I sit erer near. 

I do think the Child would not turn away. 
But would smile upon me, as is childhood's way ; 
His most dear compassion would my grief allay, 
Nor when asked forgiTeness would He say me nay. 

Happy whom Christ's Mother eo Touch safes^to^^bless 
With this ample wage for his faithfulness. 
That he may once a day her Child caress, 
Once may share the play of his mirthfulnesi. 

For his bath each morning 1 should lore to bring, 
In my toil rejoicing, water from the spring; 
And to serye his Mother still in ererything. 
His poor baby clothes I would wash and wring. 

Even this detached fragment will show that '' Philomela "^is a 
precious addition to our stores of sacred song. The importance that 
the poet himself attaches to it is indicated by the circumstance that 
from it, and not from any of his original conceits, is taken the symbol 
which first greets the eye as a sort of trade-mark on the cover. A 
pretty trade-mark the little nightingale makes in sooth ; and all the 
externals of the book are equally in good taste. " What is majesty 
stripped of its externals V* was the query propounded by a very old 



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6 14 Father Ryder^s Pcems. 

oonundmm, to which, taking '' externab " to mean the first and last 
letter of the word, you were expected to answer " a jest." These ex- 
ternals are not without their influence on our appreciation of a volome 
of poems also ; and probably we have once before in a similar context 
ventured to apply to the binding of a dainty book the warning of 
Enid's " kindly mother :" 

" For though you won the prise of fairest fair, 
And though I heard him call you fairest fair, 
Let nerer maiden think, howerer fair, 
8he is not fairer in new clothes than old." 

This blank verse would be considerably blanker were we to make 
it say, " Let no poem think, however pretty, it is not prettier in a 
pretty binding." 

But the poet will be disgusted with us for wasting so much admi* 
ration on the mere setting of his jeweb. We do so because this bind* 
ing is Dublin workmanship, and because we are writing on the day 
which opens our Dublin Exhibition of Irish Industries. And this 
reminds us of an authentic anecdote which we may disguise by a slight 
change of names. When the flrst of these Exhibitions was started in 
London, there was a briefless barrister in Dublin, whom we may call 
Achilles Willis, Esq. As cause and effect of his brieflessness, he not 
only wrote verses but printed them, and even went so far as to send a 
gorgeously boimd copy of his poems to the London Exhibition. The 
Commissioners, like some superficial critics of our acquaintance, never 
went beyond the cover of the book, thought it was merely another 
sample of Dublin workmanship, and accordingly addressed their 
acknowledgment thereof to *' Achilles Willis, Bookbinder, Dublin.** 
Father Byder might almost dread a like catastrophe, so charmingly is 
hb book got up ; but it will be only one of the items in Messrs. M. H. 
Gill & Son's show-<»ise in the Eotunda. 

In giving to the world this volume, such a striking contrast with 
his great (though little) work on ** Catholic Controversy," the Bir- 
mingham Oratorian is true to the gmiu$ lo€i and to the spirit and 
traditions of his Order. The Founder of the Oratoiy, St. Philip Neti, 
wrote sweet sonnets which have been worthily translated by his Eng- 
lish son. The two names of which ^the English Oratoiy (like the 
English Church) is proudest are Newman and Faber. Fa&er Faber 
was essentially a poet, even in prose, and for some Cardinal Newman's 
highest title to veneration is '* The Dream of Gerontiua" The late 
Father Edward Caswell would blush to be mentioned after such names^ 
yet he made many valuable additions to our stock of hymns and saored 
verse, though his poems are hardly equal in original force and literary 
finish to these poems of his con/rhre, Father Henry Xgnatias Dudley 
Byder, 



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( 615 J 



THE WETTINGS OP AN lEISH AMEEIOAN NUN. 

WE have substituted "writings" for "works" in the above 
heading, because her writings form a very small part of the 
work of the indefatigable reHgieme whom we are about to introduce to 
our readers. She is another illustration of the saying that the busiest 
have most leisure ; for she has done as much in the mere ritagli di 
tempo, the mere chips and shavings of life's workshop, as would seem 
to require many years of literary leisure. 

One of those American newspapers which so obligingly tell us 
everything about everybody gave a sketch of Mary Augustine Carroll's 
career. We give the outline of it from memory. She is one of those 
brave Irishwomen who, overcoming the timidity of their sex and doing 
violence to their clinging, home-loving nature, not only tear themselves 
away from kindred and friends, but go forth from their native land 
and cross oceans and continents in order to work chiefly for exiled 
souls of the Celtic race. Dunedin, Timaru, St. John's, Singapore, 
Sacramento, and a thousand other far-away spots, witness this slow 
martyrdom of zeal and self-sacrifice, which may, please God, place 
many as close to the Heart of Jesus in heaven as swift martyrdom at 
the stake. 

Miss Carroll is, if we recollect aright, a native of aonmel, which 
she calls somewhere ** the pleasant little town of Clonmel." In a note 
to her account of the Devotion to the Sacred Heart in Ireland, whidi 
forms a very attractive introduction to her translation of P^re Daniel s 
Life of Blessed Margaret Mary Alacoque, she alludes very touchingly 
to the old chapel on the banks of the Suir, to which her earliest and 
fondest memories cling. What a contrast between the Suir and the 
Mississippi, with which she was afterwards to be acquainted ! We 
believe she first exchanged the Suir for " the pleasant waters of the 
river Lee,*' when she found that God wished her to serve Him as a 
Sister of Mercy. How much it must have cost her to tear herself 
away from the dear home-circle we may guess even from the terms in 
which she dedicates one of her books. " To my parents : who still 
retain, as in childhood, the first place in my affection and esteem ; 
whose unobtrusive sanctity and unvaiying tenderness have inspired 
their children with a degree of reverence and love which time and 
distance but intensify, and which no other being has excited or even 
shared, these pages are affectionately inscribed, with the certainty 
that, however uninteresting to others, they will shed a new joy on 
their declining years, less for some of the reminiscences recorded than 
for the sake of her who revives them." 

We do not know when God asked her to increase her sacrifice ox 
iiome affection by going much farther away from donmeL^than St. 

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6i6 The Writings of an Irish-American Nun. 

Mary's of the Isle. In 1866, she was working in the Conyenc of 
Mercy, St. Louis, Missouri ; and very soon after she seems to have 
been sent to New Orleans to establish solidly a convent of her Order 
which had already been begun there. In the list of Convents of 
Mercy founded up to the year 1863, which Mother Austin Carroll 
compiled as an appendix for her Life of Mother M'Auley, the St. 
Louis foundation is dated 1856, and New Orleans does not appear in 
the catalogue at all. Our gratitude for the pious industry to which 
we owe the numerous solid and agreeable books now about to be 
enumerated must be increased when we know that these additions to 
religious literature were made not by a nun who was set apart for 
this special exercise of zeal, but by one who was engrossed all the 
while in the exceedingly arduous task of founding in the New World 
and maintaining in eficiency, as superioress of her convent, the various 
works which the Institute of Mercy adopts and assimilates to itself. 

The first of her writings seems to have been the one to which refe- 
rence has just been made, the Life of the Foundress of the Sifitera. 
Catherine M'Auley. It is by far the fullest and most entertaining 
account yet published of a life which has already produced such won- 
derful results, and which is destined to do so much for souls till the 
last Sister of Mercy has gained her crown. Mother Austin speaks of 
Father Tannoia as the ''Boswell of St. Alphonsus." She herself is 
the nearest approach to the Boswell of her Order ; and we use that 
proper name as meaning a minute, faithful, and lively biograper. In 
this and in all her books she prefixes to each chapter a full and 
catching enumeration of the items contained in it ; and these headings 
of chapters, grouped together as a table of contents at the beginning, 
are well calculated to tempt the reader's curiosity. Here and there in 
the Life of Mother M'Auley there are a few traces of American 
freedom and frank personality ; but it is hard to be bent on being 
always perfectly safe and judicious without being also dull. Our Irish 
American Nun is anything but dull. 

This life of her mother consists of five hundred ample and well- 
filled pages ; but she devotes a portly volume of seven hundred pages 
to the Life of St. Alphonsus Liguori, wliich was published first in 
1873. As a popular and attractive biogi-aphy of this Saint and Doctor 
this is far the best in English ; yet we suspect that even the disciples 
of St. Alphonsus are not sufficiently acquainted with its merits. One 
of his disciples, Father Clement Hofbauer is introduced by our author 
to English readers in a separate book of smaller dimensions, but of 
great interest and merit as an entertaining and edifying piece of bio- 
graphical writing. 

Mother Maxy Augustine tells the stoxy of a real life so pleasantly 
that one is not surprised at her success as a story-teller of another 
kind. The largest of her volumes of tales for the young is '* Glimpses 
of Pleasant Homes," which contain a large variety of stor^^aadoes 



The Writings of an I risk- American Nun. 617 

alBo ihe very pretty UtUe quarto entitled " Happy Hours of Child- 
hood," and even the smaller tome, '* Angel Dreams." "We have not 
been able to treat ourselves to the delightful bother of unravelling 
aU these plots (what hard toil the habitual novel-reader goea 
through !), but we have seen enough to be convinced that, as the 
historian of good and bad boys and girls, the New Orleans Reverend 
Mother is not deserted by the skill she has displayed as the biographer 
of saints. 

In the preface to that " series of tales for the little ones," to which 
is given the name of " Happy Hours of Childhood," there is a passage 
which we quote for a reason that will presently appear. " Pressed 
again and again, I declined writing for children, because, though I 
love them more than I can tell, I feared I should not be able to write 
anything worthy of them ; for it sometimes seems to me that they 
have more discernment than big people. I once saw a bright little 
fellow pick up Thackeray's masterpiece, read it for awhile, and then 
throw it down in disgust * There cmUnH be so many mean, cruel 
people,' said he, ' and the world so beautiful and so fuU of angels.' 
And yet some grown people would spend hours over such reading. 
Ah, the children know better; it is but a short time since they came 
forth from the hand of God, and they have not yet shaken off the 
heaven that lies about them." 

We have given this extract because of its similarity with a passage 
in an Irish poet with whom we trust that all our readers will very 
soon make themselves familiar, as his pure and delightful poems have 
just appeared in a cheap and yet exceedingly readable ©^J^o^- "P^ 
parallel passage, of which the judgment passed on Vanity Fair by 
Mother Austin's " bright Httle fellow" reminds us, occurs in one ot 
the less known of the genial poems of Denis Elorence MacCarthy. 
Staying at Boulogne, in March, 1865, he receives from a kind Irish 
correspondent a crocus and some violets, which set him thinking of 
many things. He calls up many happy days in Ireland. I hope 
some of the thousands who during this summer— for it is summer at 
last I— pass through the railway tunnel between Dalkey and KiUiney 
will quote MacCarthy's lines about " soft Shanganah's silver strand,*^ 
and *• the breaking of a sapphire sea upon the golden-fretted sand;" 
but let them not break the music of the line by accenting Shanganah^ 

he inhabitants do, on the first syllable. 

«« SwifUy the tunners rock-hewn pa« 

Swiftly the fiery rain rune through 
Oh 1 what a glittering sheet of glass ! 

Oh I what enchantment meets my new 
With eyes insatiate I pursue 

Till Bray's bright headland bounds the scene. 
'Tis Baiae, by a softer blue I 

Gaeta by a gladder green I" 

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6i8 The Writings of an Irish- American Nun. 

But what has this to do with '^ Thackeray's masterpiece ?" On 
that day the poet '^ with her then dear, and ever dear/' read Vanity 
Fair, after gazing their fill from Oanigoona at the wonderful scene 

below : 

" The furae-erowned heighta, the glorioui glen, 
The white-walled chapel glistening near. 
The house of God, the homes of men. 
The fragrant hay, the ripening ear ; 
There where there seemed nor sin nor crime, 
There in God's sweet and wholesome air — 
Strange book to read at such a time— 
We read in Vanity's false Fair. 

We read the painful pages through, 

Perceired the skill, admired the art, 
Felt them, if true, not wholly true — 

A truer truth was in our heart. 
Save fear and love of One, hath proved 

The sage how vain is all below ; 
And one was there who feared and Iot^, 

And one who loved that she was so." 

Not content with her original writings, this '' idle nnn " has pub- 
lished translations of several large treatises by P^re St. Jure, S.J.; 
" The ReHgious," " The Spiritual Man," &o. Also a " Spiritual Ee- 
treat," compiled from the works of St. Alphonsus Liguori and *^ Medi- 
tations and Contemplations " from Father Lewis of Grenada. Two 
other most precious compilations are the tiny tomelets of *' Sayings 
and Instructions of the Foundress of the Sisters of Mercy." With her 
Mother Austin's literary work began, with her it may end ; for the 
task on which she is at present engaged will occupy many year& The 
biographer of the Foundress has become the annalist of the Order. 
The Catholic Publication Society of New York have issued the first 
volume (520 pages) of " Leaves from the Annals of the Sisters of 
Mercy in Ireland, England, Scotland, the Colonies, and America.' 
Of course the opening volume is necessarily devoted to the mother- 
Gountiy, which here is not Great Britain but Ireland. The sub-title 
of this first volume is " Ireland : containing sketches of the convents 
established by the holy Foimdress, and their earlier developments." 

" This, then, is ell that we know and more than we know" — so 
Mr. James Anthony Froude concluded the only Saint's Life he ever 
wrote, and so he might have concluded sundry so-called Histories of 
which he has since been guilty — ^this is all that is known, and perhaps 
more than is known (for some inaccuracies may have crept into the 
meagre details we have furnished) concerning the life and writings of 
this gifted and hard-working American Nun, of Irish birth and brain 
and heart. 

M.B. 



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SKETCHED PEOM LIFE. 

BT BOBA HXTLHOLLAin). 

POOE old Sally was wending her way slowly into Dublin from the 
neighbouring country, and her destination was the poor-house* 
The dimax of all her many troubleei in this troublesome world had 
come, the sorrowful ending of her life's simple story was at hand : she 
was on her way to that last cold dwelling from which the poor turn 
away with such loathing. Sally had had her good days and her bad 
days on earth, but the worst day of all had dawned for her now when 
fiihe was about to pass, without hope of return, through the " Union " 
gate. Dragging one half-shod foot after the other, and leaning on a 
stick, she looked a picture of helplessness, dejection, utter failure and 
bankruptcy in life ; yet there was no bitter despair in her face. Her 
thoughts, if turned into language, might have run thus : ''The worst 
has come, and the Lord's will be done. I haye accepted this heavy 
humiliation for my sins. The neck of my pride is broken, and the 
decency I cherished is in the dust I am the child of honest parents, 
and the mother of industrious children. All have gone from me : the 
husband that loved me and worked for me, the big strong boys, the 
smiling little girls, even the poor cabin is taken into other hands, and 
there is no room for Sally in the world any more. I am too sick and 
weak even to be straying about the streets. I am going to knock at 
that gate that I always hated, and to rest my weaiy bones in a pauper's 
bed. Then I will turn my face to the wall, and wait for the Lord to 
take me home." 

Sally was hungiy : it was many hours since she had tasted food. 
She saw bread in the shop-windows as she crept along, but it was as 
far from her reach as if walls of brass had defended it from her 
withered hands. She did not wish for it strongly, but she longed for 
a cup of tea. "Alas !" thought Sally, " I am going to a place where 
there are no more cups of tea." 

At this moment the old woman became suddenly faint, and sat down 
upon a door-step. The streets (it was in the liberties) were grow- 
ing dark ; for a few minutes everything was dark to Sally. Slowly 
returning to consciousness, she was wiping the damp from her face, 
when a small boy stopped before her. His feet and legs were bare, 
his knees, red with cold, shone through holes in what had once been 
somebody else's knickerbockers, his face was pale and pinched, but 
the end of his little nose and tips of his ears were scarlet from the 
nipping air. 

Vol. X., No. 112 September 1882. 

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620 Sketched from Life. 

BEED 
'' Is anything the matter^th you, Missus P*' asked the boy. 
'' Matter enough/' murmured Sally, '' and no matter to anybody. 
Tm on my way to the poor-house, boy, and I can't manage to get there. 
It's the heart of me that is wake; killing me it is, and sending me to 
heaven, plaze the Lord^I" 

'< Our house is just round the comer,*' said ||the boy, ^' and if you 
can get there, it's my mother will be glad to see you." 

" God bless you, child, but the mother of the like of you has plenty 
to fill her house, I'U swear." 

'^ It's not a house, exactly ; it's a room. And there's eight of us in 
when father's at home ; but it's better than doorsteps. Up with yon, 
ma'am, and lean upon me !" 

It was no easy task for the child to guide the tottering creature to 
his mother's door, but arriyed there at^last he knocked, and a woman 
with an infant in her arms opened it to him ; so pale and thin that 
she looked as if the wind, that rushed into the dwelling, would blow 
her away, her and the white-faced baby that hung on her shoulder. 

^* She's bound for the poor-house, mother, and the heart of her is 
that wake she can't get there," explained the boy ; " an' so I tould 
her you'd make her welcome." 

« Come in, ma'am, God bless you," said the pallid mother. 
" I'm feard FU be in your way," murmured Sally, ** but it won't 
be for long, dear. And, sure Himself had no place to lay his head." 
« We're in bad need of the likes of you to bring us luck," said 
Mary Daly, the mother of six yoimg children, and who had that 
moment nothing to give them to eat. " When one opens the door to 
a body poorer than one's self, it's always the Lord that comes in. Amen, 
amen, welcome be his footsteps this blessed night." 

As she spoke, she was helping the visitor across the floor of the 
miserable room, and, with her disengaged hand, assisting little Joe to 
lay her down on the one bed that it contained ; and all softly, for fear 
of waking the baby on her shoulder, 

" What'U you all do, when I'm in your only bed ?" whispered 
Sally, as well as her irregular breathing would permit her. 

" Oh, never you mind, we have another bed; only I sold it the 
other day, to pay the back rent was owing. That's because Dan, my 
husband, ma'am, and a slater, is out of work. He won't be bome to 
disturb you to-night, so, you see, everything's for the best. Fell off 
a roof, he did, last week, and is l3ring in the hospital, praise be to 
Providence I But the black grief is gone off my heart, ma'am, sinoe 
the doctors have told me he'll over it. That's why the bed is sold and 
the fire is out ; or we*d be strivin' to make you a bit more comfort- 
able." 

One by one a little crowd of small children had crept up to the 
mother's side, and were staring with great round eyes at the strange 

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Skekhedfram Life. 62 1 

poor woman on the bed. Neither candle nor fire burned in the room, 
and the only light oame through the window from the gas-lamp shin- 
ing ooldly in the striaet outside. The children had to strain their 
eyes a good deal, trying to behold poor old Sally's drawn countenance. 
"Well she hasn't light to see you," said the mother, stroking the 
tangled looks of the one nearest her hand, ''for you're not made up 
for company. Beady for washing your faces will be when Gh>d sends 
us a piece of soap ! Bread ? Why, Patsy, what would a big boy like 
you be doin' askin' for bread at this time of night P Wait till you see 
the breakfast Fll have for you in the morning I" And then the mother 
groaned for the first time as she hid her poor emaciated face in the 
sleeping baby's neck. 

"Here's Jack," said little Joe, touching his mother; "maybe he 
has some money with him." 

A boy came past the window in the lamplight, and Joe went to let 
him in. He was a year or two older than Joe and looked almost as 
careworn as his mother. His clothes were more respectable than his 
brothers. 

" Have you any news. Jack, dear P" asked Mrs. Daly, holding out 
her hand to her eldest bom. " Holy Mother! but your hands are 
cold ! Slap them together, dear ; the fire has gone out on us." 

" Fm too small," said Jack; " that's what they said to me. They 
couldn't give the work to anyone so young. They told me to go home 
and grow. Mother, mother I what'll you do while Pm growing T' 

"I'm thinking I must wait, dear. It's true for them, my 
little boy is young. Ten years ago you had nerer seen the light, my 
lad. God will send us something to-morrow, Jack." 
" Did Joe get nothing ?" 

" Nothin'," said Joe ; I was trying to beg a few halfpence to buy 
newspapers to sell, but the police hunted me." 

Here Sally opened her dim eyes and said in a weak voice, " Por 
the love of G^ will you give me a cup of teaP" 

" Mother in heaven ! Tea !" murmured Mary Daly ; " (Jod forgive 
me, you poor sowl, but I haven't seen the colour of tea for a week. 
There's not a grain in the house." 

" I have that craving for tea," whispered Sally, " I feel as if it 
would pull up my heart a bit and give me my breath." 

" I haven't got it» I haven't got it," moaned Mrs. Daly» looking at 
the pinched faces of her hungry children, and thinking, with a pang, 
that badly as bread was needed she would get that cup of tea for the 
dying woman if only she had the means of getting anything. 

" If it wasn't so late in the night," she said, " Pd try and beg it 
from the neighbours. Tzy and sleep, honey, till the morning, and 
then we'U see what can be done." 

" Will you give me a drink of water, then ?" said Sally, " and the 
holy will of God be done !" Digitized by Googk 



622 Skekhedfrom Life. 

MrB. Daly put the sleeping baby in the armfi of its biggest brother 
And went and fetched the " cup of cold water" for the sick woman s 
that humblest offering of charily, for the tendering of which so mighty 
a reward has been promised. Sally moistened her parched lips, with 
Mary's aim supporting her dying head, and then was laid gently back 
again upon her poor pallet. 

Silence reigned in the little room ; the children were awed by the 
sight of the white face of the sick woman as it was raised up in the 
gleam of the street lamps. Mrs. Daly now set herself to trying to 
arrange them as comfortably as she could for the rest of the night. 
She seated herself with her back agaiiust the wall and spread her 
miserable skirts out upon the floor for the children to nestle upon. 
They gathered themselves round her, with their heads on her knees 
and feet— five of them — and the baby was in her arms. Thus they 
tried to keep each other warm ; and the younger ones fell fast asleep. 

To the mother and her eldest boys sleep did not come so readily. 
The presence of the dying old woman in the bed weighed upon them 
too heavily, along wil^ all their other troubles. 

" Mother," said little Joe, presently, " are you sleeping ?'' 

" No, Joe, I'm wide awake, child." 

" Mother, I'm wondering will there be plenty of tea in heaven." 

" I don't rightly know, Joe, dear, whether|it*ll be that we'll have 
plenty of tea, or that we won't want tea no more. It'll all be com- 
fortable with us, anyhow." 

'* I'd rather have the tea," said Joe, reflectively. " It isn't as good 
not to want things as it is to get them. I'm always tiying not to 
want things, and it does not feel a bit like heaven." 

'' I'd rather have rashers and eggs than tea, Joe," said Jack. 

" It's all the same," said Joe. ''I suppose if the angels can get 
you tea they can get you rashers." 

" You musn't talk that way," said Mrs. Daly. " The Mother of 
Gk>d herself didn't get much supper, I'm thinking, after her journey 
that night when she came to Bethlehem. 

Jack and Joe sighed. They were far too hungry to realise that 
there could be any blessedness in having nothing to eat. Don't be 
too hard upon them. If they grow up and get on well in the world, 
as ihey may, for they are bright, industrious little fellows, they will, 
perhaps, be able one day to point out the advantages of starvation to 
other urchins as benighted as they now are themselves. 

The night wore on; Joe and Jack fell asleep, and even poor 
Mrs. Daly herself at last slumbered from sheer exhaustion. The 
white-faced baby lay as if in a trance, with its little cold fist doubled 
up under its mother's chin, with a last effort to seek warmth. The 
mother dreamed that her husband was well again, that a fire was 
burning in the grate, and that they were all gathered round the table, 



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Reeds. 623 

old Sally induded, enjoying the longed-for cup of tea ; while aoroBS 
the background of the oomf ortable scene flitted a vision of the hea- 
venly Mother, hungiy and thirsty, with her Infant in her arms. 

The moments sped on, the darkness of night lifted a little, the 
yellow gleam of the street lights paled and yanished, and the gray 
dawn discoyered the unconscious occupants of the Dalys' cheerless 
room. The sun was shining faintly on the wall before the mother 
opened her eyes and looked around her. With a faint sigh she took 
np the burden of her life again and tried to straighten herself against 
the chill wall without disturbing her boys. She remembered Sall^ 
and cast an anxious glance at the bed in the comer. Something in 
the rigid, motionless attitude of the figure imder the poor blanket 
struck her, and she made an effort to withdraw her skirts from imder 
the children without awaking then. Then she laid the baby on the 
floor, with its head upon one of its brother's knees, and went softly 
across the floor to look more closely at the occupant of the bed. 

" Ck)d help her," she whispered to herself, " that has got to go 
into the poor-house this bitter day !" And then she uttered a little 
cry. For Sally was no longer there at all. Sally was in heaven. 



BEEDS. 

UPEIGHT upon the river 
A slender shaft of gold, 
Its heart doth strangely hold 
Sweet melody for ever. 

u 
A frail, mysterious creature, 
Out of whose narrow throat 
Came musio's earliest note 
To glad the ear of nature. 

By heavenly breezes sighing 

'Twas filled with tender song. 

That, waxing sweet and strong. 
Set all the world replying. 

Thus deep within life's river 

An empty reed I stand, 

For music shaped and planned, 
Tet silent stand for ever. 

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624 O'Connell. 

TTnless unto xne winging 
The wliisper of thy call 
Upon my heart sludl fall. 

And set my spirit singing. 

Of Thee and of thy gloiy. 

Of joy that nerer fails, 

Of mercy that avails, 
And all the tender story 

In sunbeams writ resplendent 
Across the Christian's sky : 
True Faith can never die. 

And Hope UiU rides ascendant I 

80 give each listening spirit 
Thy message in its song, 
That waxing sweet and strong, 

It wins the world to hear it. 

Br. M. 



O'OONNELL: 

HIS DIABT 7B01C 1792 TO l802, AKD LETTERS. 
HOW rOB TBI FIR8T TIMS FUBLUHBD. 

PabtVI. 

A " Paris Correspondent" mentioned lately that Th6ophile Oautier 
set up in his working-room this inscription : Lea joumantx ptotiOent 
paraiseent torn Us jours; intending probably by this pleonastic state- 
ment to warn off idle talkers, and to remind himself and his visitors 
that a writer for the daily press is bound to have his articles ready eveiy 
day. Monthly magazines, happily, do not appear once a day, or once 
a week, or once a fortnight,* but once a month only; and thus topics 
of contemporary interest have time to grow a little stale in the in- 
tervals between month and month. We are, therefore, dispensed bcm, 
the obligation of furnishing any record of events which most of oor 

* A friend of oun inquirizig fai tbixi for The Month at an Bngliah railway rtrtios, 
waaadced by the obliging repreMntatire of W. H. Smith & Son if two Jbrtlay *Hyt 
would do inatead. C^r^r\n\r> 

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OConnelL 625 

readers have seen minutely described in the ISrwmafC% Journal: but 
we cannot resume our O'Oonnell Papers without this allusion to the 
magnificent demonstration which, on the 15th of August, 1882, wel- 
comed to its place on the banks of the LifPey, in the heart of Ireland's 
capital city, the newest and noblest monument of Daniel 0'Ck>nnell. 

The unpublished papers which remain in our hands are letters 
between O^Connell and his good wife ; but the interest taken in the 
present series has suggested to some of our readers to place at our 
disposal other unpublished letters of the Liberator. We shall be * 
grateful for the privilege of examining any such documents, with a 
view to the publication at least of extracts from them. 

Our own more private and more sacred treasures can, of course, 
only be drawn upon very discreetly. Those domestic letters show 
O'Connell to have been, as he was always known to have been, a 
tenderly affectionate and devoted husband and father. We venture 
to give, almost in fuU, the first of these love-letters of married life. 
Mrs. O'Connell writes thus to her husband while absent on his summer 
circuit. 

'* 7th Augusi, 1S12. 

"Mr DXAREsr Lotb, 

"You hifcTe hy this morning's post received my letter of Wedneedaj, 
giTing 70U an account of our dear Kitty, who is, thank God, much better. She ii 
aa aaucy aa usual, but very good. Oor little Ellen is in town to-day, the picture 
of good-humour and health. The boys are veiy well, but so delighted with the 
•country they would not oome to town, eren to see me. 

" With respect to my leaving this I cannot as yet determine, as I would not wish to 
take Kitty from Doctor Leyne for some days to Grena. I will not go for the reason 
I before assigned to you, but, please God, I shall certainly be with you at the time 
.you appoint. 

** I would not wish to arrive in Cork until the day before you oould leave it with 
me. You know how unpleasant it is to have so many children in lodgings. If you 
approve of the plan I before mentioned to you, I shall adopt it. I feel, thank God, 
jnuch better, but I would be better were I once out of Kerry. You say nothing of 
the cold you had leaving this, which makes me hope it is quite gone. 

"I do, my heart, most anxiously wish for Emancipation, or any change that 
would rid you of the trouUesome life you lead, and leave' you with your family more 
than you are. As to Emancipation, if the bigots of Tralee could prevent it, thej 
would. Anything like the talk they have in the town about the transaction of 
Saturday night it is quite tiresome to be listening to. The old Tabbies ! The fact is 
'they all seem to be afraid of the poor Papists. 

" Ellen and Kitty are just here, and they beg of me to tell their father they love 
him veiy mnofa, and wish they were with him; in that, my heart, they are joined by 
their mother, who is and always will be 

" Your sinoerest and most affectionate, 

"BiiEY O'CoHirxu..*' 

An excellent P.P. of our acquaintance infoims us that in his part 
of the country the people have various epochs to which they refer the 
various lees known events, whose dates they are fixing wi&in^ih0p 



626 OConnelL 

last hundred years. " The year of the Hebellion" is, of course, one 
of ihose common to all Ireland ; but in that western district they 
speak also of '^ the year of the French," namely, when the Frendi 
soldiers landed in Killala Bay. A Uttle earlier, we think, was the 
year of the Horn "War, of which we are afraid to commit ourselves to 
an explanation. A very local date much nearer to our own time i8» 
it appears, "the year of Jones's Election," that is to say, the year 
in which a young Catholic gentleman of the locality, as commanding 
in intellectual promise and character as he was in stature and bearing, 
was put forward amidst great enthusiasm as the popular candidate in 
a county Sligo election long gone by. The popular candidate, as 
often happened in those good old days, was unsuccessful, happily for 
the young master of Benada Abbey, who otherwise might have found 
it harder to obey when the summons came, '' Leave all things and 
follow IMe." Many of our readers know something about the holy 
life and death of Father Daniel Jones, S.J., and more may hereafter 
be told. 

This subject of the special dates used in Irish chronologies oc- 
curred to us while inquiring about the central date in O'Connell's 
life — ^Emancipation. We were somewhat surprised to find that word 
in full vogue, used absolutely and without any explanation or qualifi- 
cation, as early as 1812. To be sure, the mout brilliant burst of 
Curran's eloquence culminated in " the irresistible genius of universal 
Emancipation ;" but we had not imagined that Mrs. O'Gonnell would 
say in 1812, as we have read in the preceding letter, ''I most 
anxiously wish for Emancipation." 

The same letter mentions the curious fact, often alluded to in this 
correspondence, that Mrs. O'Connell's health suffered in the air of her 
native Kerry and fiourished in the Metropolis. This circimistance is 
alluded to in the first lettter we have of O'OonneU's, two years later. 
His letter explains also how it came to pass that the good people of 
Killarney was balked of their hope of hearing the rising young orator 
of the day, Charles PhiUips : — 

•'JSSllamey, ISM Sq^tember, 1814. 

«Ht Barung Lovb, 

*<I am more alarmed than I wuh to aaj about your flight front 
Mallow. It was, I am sure, more oooarioned by your own illneaa than bj my sweet 
Nell's toothache. You will get, I trust, well from the Cork air ; but at all eveots 
Dublin is a certain restoratiTe. 

'* Have you seen or heard anything of Phillips? I never knew a man so insane 
with lore. It seems that the lady promised to write to him on Thursday ; she forgot 
the promise, and he was Tery uneasy that day. Friday came, and no letter ; Saturday, 
no letter ; Sunday also without a letter. And off he set on Monday morning in 
the day coach. I nerer saw anybody so dull and stupid, nor have I seen so much 
agony as he exhibited as he was daily disappointed of a letter. He has suBered a 
great deal, and be has, you may imagine, not a little disappointed public expectation. 

" The meeting took place this morning. John was in the chair, Lord Kenmare 

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(yConnell. 627 

haying been obliged to go off to see his niter, who had met with an accident near 
Cork. The meeting was the most numerous anh respectable that erer met in Eerrj. 
I hope 70U will be satisfied with our resolutions. 1 was the onlj orator; I spoke rery 
badlj. 

" I go off for Nenagh in the morning. 

** With kindest lore to mj sweet darlings, EUen and Eate, 

" Erer jour fondest, 

"Dakikl O'Cohkbu.. 

This ComiBellor Phillips who, in the oircumstanoes described in 
the foregoing letter, bolted without making his expected speech at 
Xlillamey, was a young Protestant barrister who espoused the cause 
of the Catholics, and had at one time a considerable reputation, which 
his published volume of speeches does not justify. But in this re- 
spect he resembles much greater orators. From his poem, **Th6 
Emerald Isloy" 0'Ck>nnell was fond of quoting as a finale to one of 
his addresses :— 

" Still shalt thou be my waking theme. 

Thy glories still my midnight dream ; 

And ereiy thought and wish of mine, 

Unoonquered Erin, shall be thine !" 

He honoured these lines still further by writing them in young ladies' 
albums when dunned for his autograph, as Samuel Sogers used to 
write in similar emergencies : — 

*' Enowledge is proud in that she knows so much, 
Tjeaming it humUo that she knows no more." 

A correspondent of the Weekly BegUter last week (September 2nd, 
1882), disinters Phillips' lines from a scrap-book now residing at 63 
High-street, Bedford, imagining them to be O'Connell's own. All 
that we knew of him before, and the recent revelations of his youthful 
diary, lead us to believe that the great Tribune had a far less keen 
appreciation of poetry than any of the other great orators from 
Curran to Bright. One who remembers his style of oratory tells us 
he did not repeat poetry poetically. Perhaps this dearth of the 
poetic element was a source of weakness to him as an orator to be 
read as well as listened to, and a source of strength to him as a 
practical politician and a leader of men in this prosaic world. 

We venture to take as our next item in this correspondence a 
letter by one of the Liberator's sons, written at a date which will seem 
incredible to those who have the pleasure of being acquainted with 
the writer. He will allow us to quote it for the sake of the amiable 
postscript attached to it by his illustrious father. The Mr. K^ony he 
mentions was Father Peter Kenny, the Beotor of Olongowes Collegei 
the chief instrument in the re-establishment of the Society of Jesus in 
Ireland. Take notice of the little lad's notions of quick travelling 
from Dublin to Limerick. 

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628 (yCormelL 

"MTDBARliAlOfA, 

"We arriTed here on Friday after % proeperooa rojage. Mj 
father it jwj well, and lo ia Mauriee. We are to leare tiiie to-daj and proeeed 
immediately to Killam^ ; we are not to tondi at all upon Tralee^ as there k a ferer 
there. There was a Catholic meeting jestecday. The papers mention that the ferer 
in Cork has almost suhsided. In oonsequenoe of the ferer in Tralse^ no business will 
he done there. I think that I am a fool to write a letter withoat knowing what to 
•sj. Onr jonmer here was Tery short; we started from Kaas at a qoarter past 
deren o*eloek at night* and at four the next morning I got oot of the ooaoh and went 
on the top. I did not get down the whole daj, and when we arriyed at T^im ^ ric V I 
was quite thirsty. I must now finish this letter hj telling you that I am yoar affee- 
tionate son, 

*' MOROAV Patbick O^OonixLL. 
*' P.S.-— GiTe my love to all at Clifton. Father and Maurice join me." 

'< Such, darlings is your son Morgan's epistle. Need I tell you that it is genuLw? 
He is always in grsat spirits. If I had space to-day, I would copy Mr. Kenny's 
account of my sweet boys. Maurice may, he says, be wn/UiMg, I will write again 
this day to the General to settle about our journey to Toulouse ; we will go, darilng. 
early in September, that you may have fine weather. I shall again enjoy the 
unrestrained society of my darling ehildreo. 

" Dearsst) dearest heart, belieTe me erer yours most tenderly, 

''DuriXLO'CoinrsLL. 

M AaguMt, 1817.'* 

Whenever we are inclined to imagine that nothing patronised by 
the polite, refined, good-natored world, can nererthelesg be horribly 
bad and wicked, we have only to call to mind the detestable onatom 
of duelling which once was imposed as a duty by the tyranny of fashion. 
Men, otherwise sensible, kind-hearted, and even pious and religious, 
considered themselves bound in honour to run the risk of being mur- 
derers or else of going before the judgment-seat of Ood with the double 
guilt of murder and suicide. There are few incidents in O'Oonnell's 
life better known than the duel forced on him by Colonel D'Esterre as 
champion of the Corporation of Dublin, which O'Oonnell, in denounc- 
ing their petition against the emancipation of Catholics, had charac- 
terised mildly enough as a " beggarly corporation." As an illustra- 
tion of the feelings excited at the time by the result of the duel this 
letter of Mrs. O'Connell's brother may be printed* He was a retired 
officer of the line and Adjutant of the Kerry Militia. 

" TVflZw, FtHrruaxy 40, 1816. 
**MtDsarDi5, 

** An erent of all others I most wished for hss taken filaoe. To express to yoa 
my feelings this morning in reading the FrwminiCt Journal, giving a full and aoeurata 
aocount of the duel between you and Mr. D'Esterre is beyond my powers of deaerip- 
tion, particularly as the unfarourable impreenon that remained fUed on my mind, and 
which I could not direst myself of, relatlre to the manner in which your ^ff^> with 



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CyCannelL 



629 



Mr. ICagrath was patched up bj that mxierable meddler in Catholic aflain gare mo 
the most Mrioas uneaiiiieie. On this snbject I nerer spoke to you. Though you 
mentioned it to me in Oork, shortly after it occurred, I did not giTe any opbion about 
it. But I was deddedly aware, whenerer it came to the point and when you weiw 
fairly committed and left to your own judgment, and with such a friend as Mr. 
M'Namara^ that you would haye conducted yourself with that steadincM, carriage^ 
and coolness which are the true and leading characteristics of an O'ConnelL Indeed, 
my dear Ban, I can't tell you how delighted I am. My spirits which were miserably 
d^ressed by a biliouB attack, brought on by uneasiness of mind in consequence of a 
late meiancholy and unfortunate erent, haTC risen beyond the poosifaility of my expec- 
tations. I am this day quite a new man ; my fondest wishes ar« realised. Yo« 
hare laid low the champion of intolerance and the beggarly corporation of Dublin, to 
use your own words, who selected the unfortunate D'Esterre as the man, the only 
man, thej could prerail upon of that highly respectable body to put down the trouble- 
some Counsellor O'ConnelL 

** Is it true that James is committed with young Saurin, and that thsj ar« to 
fight? If they are, I trust the result will be such as we all wish it to be. Johnoan*' 
OTer here to-day ; we met with a cordial shake of the hand and congratulated each 
other on the glorious result of the dud. He talks of going up to Dublin if he doea 
not receiTe a satisfactory answer about James's affair on Monday. 

" Make allowances for my manner of writing, you know my education was rather 
limited. AU the consolation I haje is that whaterer I say or write is sincerity. 

" Brer, my dear Dan, 

*' Affectionately yours^ 

"B. CCOIOTLL." 

'< DAVin 0*CoinnELL» Esq., 

" aO Mmioih§gmar0, South, Dublim.** 

It IB well to note tliat the house then oconpied by O'Oonnell, and 
in which he lived to the end, addressing the mnltitades, for instance, 
from its balcony on the day of his release from fiichmond Bridewell, 
in September, 1844, is no longer No. 30 but No. 58, the residence at 
present of Dr. Kidd. 

One thing is abundantly evident from the letters we have been 
allowed to read, namely, that there never was a more attached couple 
than the terrible demagogue, Daniel O'Connell, and his gentle Maiy. 
This is proved even by the number of Mrs. 0*ConneU's letters, which 
her illustrious husband preserved carefully, though pursuing In'n^ to 
out-of-the-way places on his circuit, where special care was needed to 
treasure up these expressions of mere wifely regard. Letters cost 
more than a penny in those days, yet letters passed every day between 
husband and wife when separated. Charles Lamb advises near rela- 
tives to find out ways of expressing mutual love, lest the veiy familia- 
rity should dull the fervour of affection. O'ConneU acted on this 
advice before it was given. Beplying to a letter of his, Mrs. O'Oonnell 
writes, on the 1st of April, 1820 : '' I cannot tell you how vain your 
letter made me this morning, but it is quite too flattering. My dear 
love, you don*t know how much I prize your good opinion or how 
anxious I am to do all in my power to make you happy. In thia 

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630 O'ConnelL 

world I believe there Ib not Bach a difipositioii as yours, always inclined 
to contribute to the happiness of those around you, and to do good for 
evil. I am certain there is not one of your family that would inten- 
tionally give you a moment's uneasiness." 

There are a great many public men who do not improve on further 
acquaintance. This is one of the applications of the German sar- 
casm, ''strass-engel^haus-teufel" [street-angel, home-devil], though 
one does not need to be a great public man to be a pleasant fellow to 
meet in public and yet a very disagreeable member of the domestic 
circle. '' If you mu»t have two sides to your face, for God's sake keep 
the 'bright side for your homes " was the advice given once, not to 
any distinguished men, but to some undistinguished ladies. 

It is a great satisfaction to find our great O'Connell so thoroug^y 
good and amiable with his wife and children. On the 13ih of March, 
1821, she writes to him simple, affectionate words, which she little 
thought would be preserved carefully and printed sixty years after- 
wards: 



^ Your little boy is not yet reoondled to your aliMDee. Beally, love, 1 1 
anyUiiiig like the affection he leems to hare for you. You would be quite delighted 
with the ezpreaeion of hie countenance when he mentions your name. Yeeterday 
erening again he aat in my lap to talk of hit * fader.' You will beliere, Iotc^ I in. 
dulged him on the nibjeet, with the ainoerest and trueet lore for bim and hit ' fadw.' 
The doat ! what a comfort and a bleaeing he la to hie father and mother. 



" Yon will amile when I tell you we were talking of y^ur beauty when yon mar* 
ried. Bllen began by aaking me were you not Tery handsome at that time^ and she 
was not displeased at my answer, < I think, mamma, my father b still handsome ; 
don't you think so, mamma ?' In this opinion of my 'poor Bllen's I coincided with 
great sincerity. Next week I shall have my Kate talking on the same aubgeet^ Son- 
day will be her Inrthday. It would be celebrated rightly if her father was at home; 
it is a great drawback to her mirth to haTe her father absent" 

I hope I am not using indiscreetly the trust reposed in me by the 
owner of these papers, by showing the great Agitator as one whom 
his wife thought likely to be interested in such domestic events as the 
cutting of his little boy's hair and the buying of his first primer. 
« You have been " (she teUs him in one letter), '' the best and most 
beloved of husbands, and you will continue such to the last hour d 
my life." And she enters more fully into this interesting subject in 
a letter dated "Dublin, May 7th, 1825.*' 0*Oonnell, then in the 
prime of his manhood at 50, had been calling himself an old man, in 
order, probably, to draw his correspondent out. 

<' Ht own DAauiro Lots, 

•< On my return this moment, four o'clock, from driTing about the town, I 
found the postman at the door with your letter, your sweet letter. Bu^ dariof^ I 
ought to acold yon well for your pettiahness. Tell me, love, what immm bate yo« to 



O'ConnelL 631 

suppofle you are not the idol of mj heart ? O Ban, it is impossible for me to gire 
70a the emalleit notion bow belored you are bj me. Why should you speak of your 
age or allude to it ? Surely, my own heart, I am for a woman much older. If I had 
not real lore for yon, would not my pride make me loTe you ? By real lore I mean 
loTing you for yourself alone. Do not, my own heart, Tex me by eTer writing or 
speaking in this manner again, but rest assured that in ezistenoe there b not a husband 
so belored as you are." 

By way of reprisalei and to show tliat in these connubial letters the 
redprodty was not all on one side, we mig^t dte a letter of the Libe- 
rator, which begins, '' My darling love, I approve of all yonr arrange- 
ments — ^when did you erer make any arrangements of which I did not 
approye ?" — and which ends thus : " Darling, give my tenderest loye 
to our children. Gome as soon as you possibly can to be pressed to 
the heart of (darling lore, sweetest love,) your most tenderly and 
doatingly fond Daniel O'Connell.'' Another letter ends : '' I am 
impatient to be with you, my own darling heart's love. May the great 
God of heayen bless and preserye my darling sweet Mary !** 

Here we may interpolate, somewhat abruptly, a brief letter of a 
different kind which we find occurring in this correspondence about 
the date we haye now reached. 

'« aatwday, 2Srd (sio], 1825. 
*'MtdkabSib, 

" I called at your hotel to-day in order to thank you for the great kindness 
whieh you and your son had the goodness to show to William in Dublin, and also to 
beg you to oome and see ns at Kensington, as soon as you can ; to which let me add a 
prayer that you will not suffer yourself to be disheartened by the proofs that you will 
■oon reoetTe of the baseness and perfidy of politicians. At all erents I hope you will 
beliereme, with a Tery anxious desire to see you, 

** Your most obedient serrant, 

*■ Wm. Cobbrt. 
•' To DiKiXL O'OoNirvLL, Bsq«, 
<• 8t. Pet&rtbmy Hotel." 



TO OUE DEAE ONES WITH GOD. 

BT SISTKB MABT AGIOBB. 

TT7E do not grudge your ejes the blessed light 
* ' Which gladdens them upon life's further shore, 
Although our eyes ache hourly for the sight 

Of your dear faces, lost for eyeimore 
Till the old ties again are knit in one. 

In an unchanging and immortal land. 
And the sweet links, by Death's rough grasp undone. 
Are reunited by a master Hand. 
Vol. X., Kg. 112. ogi^JI^ by GoOglc 



632 To Our Dear Ones with God. 

We do not eiiTj you your well-eamed rest. 

Beyond the ebb and flow of mortal tide ; 
Although life's cares have harder on us pressed 

Than in the days when you were by our side. 
And every burden has a double weight, 

Because it henceforth must be borne alone, 
And eyery sorrow seemeth twice as great, 

Because no heart can know it save our own. 

We would not rob you of an hour's repose 

In the sweet peace so eagerly desired, 
Though only Gh)d our weaxy yearning knows 

For all that lived in you, with you expired : 
The little nothings, all so fondly prized. 

That bound you to us by a thousand rights. 
The tones that soothed, encouraged, and advised. 

The sympathies that were our heart's delights ! 

We would not wish you in our midst again 

For all the comfort that your love could give, 
We would not cause to you an instant's pain. 

Whatever pleasure we might thus receive ; 
And yet we miss you with a growing want 

Which seems as though it muxt be satisfied, 
And your dear shadows ev'ry comer haunt, 

Yet evermore beyond our vision glide ! 

Ah, dear ones I if God's love on you bestows 

A delegation of his gracious powers. 
If, as we doubt not. He each trial shows. 

Do not your hearts beat still in tune with ours ? 
Are not you pleading for us in the Light, 

Whilst we strive painfully through <1<trlmfliyiy home ? 
Are you not watdiing with love-quickened sight 

How you can best unto our succour come ? 

Will you not welcome us with outstretched arms 

When we at last obtain the victor's crown ? 
Will not Qod's very throne have added channs 

When we can join our worship to your own ? 
Will not Qod bless, with sanction all divine. 

The love which is of his dear love a part ?' 
Is there not throned in heaven's most sacred shrine 

In Gk>d's own breast a sweetly human Heart ? 



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( 633 ) 
THE MONK'S PROPHEOr. 

A TALB. 
BY ATTIS o'bBISN. 

OHAPTEE XTX. 

AN ABTIBT*S BXTtTBlT. 

The spring^fcime deepened and burst into golden somnier. Mails 
had oome in, but there was no letter from Mrs. WyndiU. Mrs. Barry 
called at Oosgrave's, and was informed by the landlord that no letter 
had oome there. She watched her opx>ortunity and called again when 
he was out, but got the same answer from the heart-broken landlady. 
Father Moran, who had returned from Italy, was quite surprised at 
her silence, and at length wrote to Mrs. WyndiU himself to know the 
cause of it. Before he could have a reply a letter came to him from 
Mr. WyndiU, expressing his uneasiness at not hearing from Sydney ; 
they had written to her several times, and had enclosed a cheque in the 
first letter. They were yexy anxious either to have the girl out at 
once, or to be sure she was properly taken care of tiU everything was 
arranged for her journey. They might be able to get leave before 
another year, or Eustace might come home in the autumn : a few 
months would decide what was best to be done. In the meantime he 
begged of Father Moran to spare no expense in providing for her, and 
to let them know at once the reason of the unanswered letters. 

Jim Barry made inquiries again at Sydney's former lodgings. He 
found Mr. Oosgrave too drunk to impede the utterance of his wife, who 
was in the deepest despair. Her daughter was gone : she knew not 
where, or how, or with whom ; but she was gone. She knew nothing 
about the letters ; it was Julia always took the post; it was the only 
thing in the house she was ready to do. If she (Mrs. Cosgrave) had 
got letters for the orphan chUd, they would have been safe with her, 
she would have sent them to her the same day, but she did not get 
ihem, nor did she ever hear JuHa say that any came for her. Jim 
departed, confirmed in the suspicion that Julia Oosgrave was not of 
scrupulous habits, and had taken possession of the missing letters. 

Sydney wrote at once to Mrs. WyndiU, telling her how happily she 
was placed, and how dearly she loved her new friends ; she told her 
also of the amount of money she had remaining, and that she could 
weU afford to stay at home until it was quite convenient>for Mrs. 

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634 The Monk's Prophecy. 

Wyndill to take her. She drew a long breath when the letter was 
posted. She felt as if she had got a reprieve, and thanked Gbd that 
some months, at least, would elapse before she should part from Ida 
and Miss White. When the quarter came to a dose, she ceased to 
attend the school, but she and Ida continued to study at home with 
considerable diligence. 

One eyening in the month of June, when the world seems aknost too 
full, and the sun too ardent, Sydney was seated on the steps of Mrs. 
Huzton's house waiting for Ida ; a large hat concealed her face as she 
bent oyer a book that lay on [her knees, and so absorbed was she in 
its contents that she did not (hear an approaching step and was only 
awakened to consciousness of outward things by a man's voice and 
the clasp of his arm ; she lifted her startled eyes to see a dark hand- 
some face beside her. 

The young man sprang back. " I beg a thousand pardons," he 
stammered ; '' I thought it was my sister." 

<' Oh, Ida's brother," cried Sydney, starting up. « Ida, Ida !" 

Ida appeared, and while the brother and sister were dlasped in 
each other's arms, Sydney stole away and told the glad tidings 
to Miss White. 

In a short time Ida came out radiant with delight, to tell them they 
were to come in to tea at once. Frank was coming to see mammy, 
only aunt said she would arrive more quickly if he did not come out to 
her. In a few moments they were all assembled at Mrs. Huxton's, 
whose prevailing idea was that her nephew must be famished, and Ida 
introduced her brother to Sydney, with a great assumption of dignity. 

'< I introduced myself before, very unceremoniously," said the 
young man, smiling. '< Did I not, Muss Ormsby P I did not dream 
there could be a young girl in the place but Ida. And is it not plea- 
sant to be back,*' he continued, sitting down, *' and to have such a 
fuss made about one ? I did not create such a sraisati<m since I went 
away." 

<< And is it not qxute wonderful to have you arrive just like an ordi- 
nary mortal," said Ida, '^ without even a velveteen coat, a portfolio 
under your arm, or a daub of paint? Sydney expected to see you 
with your easel before you, like a bandboy's music." 

<' It destroys your ideal of an artist to find me so oommonplaoe ; 
does it not. Miss Ormsby f" he said. 

Sydney smiled and shook her head, thinking the while that he 
looked enything but commonplace. He was very like Ida, tall and 
slight, with the same dark complexion and splendid eyes, but he 
seemed to be of a graver temperament ; he rarely laughed, but he had 
a slow smile that gradually parted his lips ^and gave his face a beau- 
tiful expression. He had the look of a man who thought, who lived a 
good deal within himself and had control over his impulsjBSk^^^f ^ 

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The Monk's Prophecy. 635 

The foreign appearance of her nephew and nieoe was a topic that 
Mrs. Huzton evidently did not relish. Their father was dark, she 
would saj, in answer to any inqniries on the subject ; so was their 
mother, she heard, Jbut she had neyer seen her. She generally changed 
the conversation when it arrived at such personal details^ and no one 
was made acquainted with the family histozy of the young people's 
maternal progenitors. 

Frank Lestrange entertained them with an account of his travels 
and adventures during the evening, so that Miss White was taken by 
surprise when the clock struck ten. He was to bring his portfolio 
next night and show them sketches of many places he had been in, 
and give them an insight into the divine realm of art. He would look 
out for lodgings as near as possible to the Almshouse, and make the 
most of his stay with them. He had several small finished pictures, 
he said, and oUiers nearly so. It was uphill work, but he looked to 
the future with hopeful anticipations. 

Next morning at an early hour he and Ida set out to look for 
lodgings. They should be well lighted and they should be cheap ; 
and, as it is sometimes difficult to get what you want for what you 
can afford to give for it, they found themselves going from house to 
house, seeking light and economy in vain. At length they resolved to 
get information from Mrs. Bany, and went away by the river until 
they reached the cottage. After renewing his acquaintance with her 
and receiving her cordial welcome, he told her what he was looking 
for. "A room like this would do me," he said, looking about, 
'' plenty of light and quiet. Who knows but you would take me as a 
lodger yourself, Mrs. Barry ?" 

<< 'Deed, then, I would, sir, with a heart and a half, if you thought 
it good enough," answered Mrs. Barzy. '' 'Tis an humble place, I 
know, but 'tis dean, and a pretty look-out. And 'tis often I have a 
gentleman in it. Sure I'd be as proud as punch if |I could accommo- 
date you." 

" Say no more, the bargain is made," said Prank ; *"tis the veiy 
place to suit me; and Jim will be my valet I shall order my things 
from the hotel at once." 

After having made his arrangem ents, which gave general satisfaction, 
he and Ida went into town, he to his hotel, and she to attend her pupils. 
The day passed away happily for them alL Ida never found her 
pupQs so tractable. Mrs. Hilton was in a glow over preparations 
for the dinner, bearing in mind that she had to scold Frank for his 
extravagance in sending in so many things — ^meat, fruit, wine, &o. 
When Ida arrived, the domestic horizon brightened into brillian^^, 
and her joyous laughter, breaking musically through the open doors 
and windows, made the old ladies^ in the other houses smile and 
sigh. 



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636 The Monk's Prophecy. 

The dinner was yery fiunple, but the friends were eztremelj happy. 
The two elder^i beautiful in a serene old age, looked with unutterable 
love on the hopeful young people, who were [making the best of their 
liyes, working for independence with strong and cheerful spirits. 
There were no feeble laments that fortune had 'not favoured them : 
no complaints oyer the narrowness of their career ; no enyy of those 
that had been more fortunate, but patient resolye to do the beet they 
could to-day and leaye to-morrow to Gbd. Happiness is not depen- 
dent on material causes, though it must be admitted they increase it 
considerably ; and the Almshouse party drew theirs from the inex- 
haustible spring of pure affections. They loved each other, and eacH 
deserved to be beloved. Beside the bond of natural affection there 
was an intellectual one between the brother and sister ; though she 
had no talent for drawing, she had a thorough appreciation of art, 
and followed him into its labyrinths with a quick comprehension and 
sympathy that gave an impetus to his own conceptions. Many winter 
evenings in their yoimg years had been spent drawing pictures in 
their imagination, the girl telling him how he was to paint scenes 
that had struck her fancy, and angel faces that came to her in 
dreams. They had studied together when they returned from their 
respective schools, so they were nearly equal in mental acquirements, 
and had read and argued over the same books. As they differed in 
their opinions almost as often as they agreed, their intercourse was 
neither languid nor insipid. '' Whenever a question arises between 
Frank and me,'* Ida would say, ''the listeners are certain to hear both 
sides of it." 

After dinner Frank opened his portfolio and showed them ^many 
sketches ; simny glimpses of the Bhineland, mountain passes, and 
grim old casties reflected in quiet waters, giving them a human inte- 
rest» by relating lihe weird legends still clinging to the mouldering 
piles. 

" That land of poetry and dreams makes one long for genius," 
said the artist. '' I felt there as if my talent was but aspiration.** 

''Poor mother used to tell G^off that genius was hard work," an- 
swered Sydney. 

"Geoff?" said the artist. *'Iknew a Geoff abroad— Geoff 
M'Mahon." 

" Oh, that is he !" replied Sydney, delighted ; " is it possible you 
met him ? How is he ? Is he better ?" 

" Yes, indeed, I have met him, and he is getting very strong. He 
is a fine young f eUow, and has a thorough love of art I met him at 
Florence, and we became great friends. And so you knew him also ?" 

" Oh, yes; Geoffrey was the dearest boy in the world : so patient 
and good. Is he able to walk yet?" 

" Yes ; he walks with a stick, but has a slight halt. He told meat 

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The Monk's Prophecy. 637 

one time he had to use orutdies. I have made a diacoyeiy, Mifis 
Oimsbj. I was teasing my brain to disooyer where I had seen a f aoe 
like yours. Now I have it." He had been rapidly turning over the 
drawings, and at length drew out a little sketch and laid it before her. 

" Oh, Poulanass»" she cried, her face flushing. '' Qeoff's picture ; — 
look at it, Ida. I remember so well the evening he drew it, when we 
were standing on the bridge together. Look, that is the end of the 
Hut ; and that is our goat eating the ivy behind the spray ; I told 
Geoff it was like a pig first. Poor Poulanass ! I'd like to see it 
again." The girl's eyes filled with tears. 

" It must be a lovely waterfall,'^ said Ida^ " and really the nymph 
of the wave is very like you, 8yd." 

"I copied OeofTs sketch as well as I could," said Frank. ''It 
struck me as being a very graceful design. I promised him to go and 
see his part of the world when I was rambling about next. Perhaps 
I will run down there soon for a few days ; he says the scenery is 
worth seeing. Where would you like to go, Ida, for your holidays ?" 

" Oh, would it not be lovely if we could all go to the Hut ?" ex- 
claimed Sydney. 

'^ 'Tis an angel speaks," answered Ida. '' Let us storm Nellie." 

*' I am serious," said Sydney, earnestly, '' Why couldn't we go ? 
It would not cost much at alL Kellie has eggs, and butter, and fowl. 
And we could live on all the presents we should get," she went on, 
growing excited at the idea, " and it would do Mrs. Huxton and Miss 
White ever so much good. Wouldn't it, Ida ?" 

" Leave me out, Sydney dear," said Mrs. Huxton, smiling. ''I'm 
too heavy and rheumatic for long journeys. Ooax Miss White, and 
leave me to mind the houses." 

" Why don't you speak, Ida P" asked Sydney, puUing her by the 
arm. " I always second a plan of yours. Why don't you second 
mine? Would you not like it P Could you not coax Miss White? 
But any way, if no one elaewent/' she added, hesitatingly, ''could 
not you and Mr. Lestrange make use of the hut ? Nellie would be so 
delighted." 

"I think the plan is simply perfection," said Ida^ gaily. "I 
waited a moment to filter it through my judgment. My decision is 
this : Aunt is to be let alone. I know her of old, and she is not to be 
goaded into migratory habits. Miss White is to come, to give an air 
of respectability to the tourists ; Prank is to come to perfect himself in 
art ; Sydney is to come to do the honours of her countiy residence ; 
and Ida is to come, to dazzle all beholders. Our holidays are settled ; 
and August will be glorious." 

Sydney dung to her in rapture, and recounted all the advantages 

. to be gained by a visit to that particular locality. How delighted 

Nellie would be, and Father Moran, and Mrs. Ghde, and all the poor 

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638 The Monies Prophecy. 

people. She knew every view in Bathmoylan and Oaaaeiahen, and 
it would cost bo little : the railway fares would be the principal ex- 
pense, and she would be so happy to have them for one Httle while in 
her old home. 

So it was settled. Ida represented to Miss White that she could 
not eonscientionsly allow three headlong young people to go without 
her ; there would be no certainty about dinner, and even tea might 
be unsatisfactoiy. They would not be comfortable unless she came to 
take care of them ; and surely she would not wish that there should 
be any drawback in their brief holiday. Of course the little lady oon- 
sented, and the yotmg girls looked for August with happy hearts. 
Sydney wrote to Father Moran and Nellie, both of whom were en- 
chanted with the scheme. Nellie began her preparations at once, 
airing and cleaning, keeping a list in her mind of eveiything she 
would borrow from the priest's housekeeper. She announced the glad 
tidings to everyone around, and all were pleased at the prospect of 
seeing the widow's child again. 

The advent of the artist was a new and vigorous element in the 
girls' lives. It seemed strange at first to see a man entertained in the 
Almshouse. The rooms appeared to be smaller, and quite too narrow 
for his legs, when he sat in them. One had the idea that he could 
hardly move without knocking down some of the furniture or orna- 
ments. Ida told him he reminded her of the hot-house in the Botanic 
Gardens, where such a gigantic plant grows in a tiny tub. But the 
artist adapted himself, and the sense of oppression wore off. 

The sunlit summer days passed softly away. The artist had a few 
orders which he was working hard to complete, but he came in the 
evenings, and they had long, delightful walks into the green heart of 
the country. On Sundays he took them for longer excursions by 
mountain and sea. 

'' Is there any fear of your falling in love with Sydney, Frank P' 
asked Ida, when first he came home. 

The yoxmg man smiled and shook his head. '< I am not one of 
those fellows that cry for the moon," he said ; " I shall keep dear of 
love till I can afford to many, and heaven knows when that will be. 
Luckily for my peace of nund, I am not a spooney fellow." 



OHAPEBXX. 

TE THB HUT. 

In a few weeks the four travellers were on their way to the 
country. Instead of making the latter part of the journey by rail, 
they changed from land to water, and sailed down the sunlit river, 
"ig wide and empty between its wooded shores. 

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The Monies Prophecy. 639 

They passed the groups of islands nsixig green and bare from its 
transparent bosom, and soon the gray towers of Bathmoylan appeared 
above the forest trees. A little boat came out to meet the steamer, 
and lay alongside rocking on the swells, while it was jSlled with casks, 
firkins, parcels, and packages. Miss White felt sundry misgivings 
as she was helped into it, but bravely kept them to herself. The 
young people thought it a splendid mode of progression, and sprang 
down in the best possible spirits. The boatman rowed them to the 
shore, where they foimd Father Moran's car waiting for them. They 
drove rapidly along the shady roads, over which the arching trees met 
and mingled. Ferns and foxgloves clothed the wayside with beauty, 
while the combined odours of honeysuckle, sweet-brier, and meadow 
fields filled the warm air with refreshing fragrance. 

In the gayest temper they rattled over the stony roads ; they passed 
out of the woods; they came within the sound of falling waters. 
"Poulanass!" cried Sydney. They dashed over a bridge. "Here 
we are I " she exclaimed. " Nellie ! Nellie ! " She sprang off the car 
almost before it stopped, and was clasped in the arms of Nellie, who 
was watching at the little gate. " My lannuv," cried the old nurse, 
the tears running down her face, giving her a kiss like a pistol shot. 
*' My lannuv bawn, I thought Td never lay my eyes on you again." 

" Poor Nellie ! " said Sydney, kissing her again and again ; '' I am 
80 glad to see you ; come and welcome my best friends, Miss White 
and Miss L'Estrange/' 

Nellie advanced, wiping her comely face, and gave them a cordial 
greeting. She looked searchingly at the young man as he stepped 
forward. <* You are the young lady's brother, sir. Anyone would 
know ye out of one another, and sure if ye are as good as ye are 
handsome the world will be the better of ye. Will ye step in, if ye 
plaze? Father Moran was here this momin'. Miss Sydney, to know 
• was everjrthin' right before ye ; an' he desired me to say he'd be back 
in the coorse of the evening. He is finely now, thanks be to God an' 
his Blessed Mother. But aren't you grown the big girl, asthore 
machree, an' as lively as ever? Come in, agra; lave the shawls on 
the gate. Patsy." 

They went into the tiny pleasure-ground, which was in the neatest 
order. The show of flowers was not so varied as in the old times, 
but many old fashioned ones still remained : lovely cabbage roses, 
pinks, sweetwilliams, and lavender. The grass was newly mown, 
and Poulanass poured down its bright stream, and flung its silver 
spray upon the air in unchanged brightness. They entered the little 
Bitting-room, where the table was neatly laid for dinner. Sydney led 
Hiss White and Ida to the bedroomi and then followed Nellie to the 
kitchen, where she was preparing chickens and putting rashers of 
bacon on the pan. Sydney threw her arms about her aii4> Bobbed 

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640 The Monks Prophecy. 

bitterly for a few moments. " My poor lannuy, my motherless difld," 
said the old woman, rocking her in her arms. '' Hush, asthore, sure 
tears can't bring her back to us, an' she with the Lord of glory ; dhiy 
your eyes, asthore, an' don't lave your company." Sydney wiped 
away her tears and returned to the sitting-room. Frank L'Estrange 
was standing at the end window, and turning as she entered, looked 
earnestly at her tear-stained face. She sat down, her lips quivering, 
though she tried to steady them. "What is it, Sydney?" he said, 
taking her hand in his. 

" Poor mother," answered Sydney, the tears filling her eyes again ; 
" 'tis lonely here without her." 

" I am sorry we came here," said he ; " we should have gone 
somewhere else." 

" Oh, no," she replied, hastily, crushing back her tears, '* I am so 
happy we came. It is all over now. I won't be sad again. 
Don't tell them." 

The young man turned away, and gazed silently out of the window. 
Sydney stood up and rearranged the table. Miss White and Ida 
soon entered. The young hostess helped Nellie to bring in the dinner, 
and in attending to her guests her melancholy soon vanished. 

Later on, Father Moran arrived, and became friendly at once with 
the strangers. L'Estrange was to sleep at his house, he said ; there 
was no use in hunting up lodgings in the village ; he could have a 
latchkey if he liked, and stay out as long as he wished admiring 
moonshine. Geniuses were well known to be of disorderly habits, and 
for his own part he did not mind when people went to bed, supposing 
they got up like Christians at a reasonable hour. 

He and the artist, having been so lately in foreign lands, had 
many subjects of common interest to discuss. The evening passed 
away so pleasantly that time slipped by unnoticed until the priest 
discovered, with a start, that it was after ten o'clock. "Oh, this will 
never do for me," he said, standing up ; ''I have to go out to Cannon 
Island at sis: o'clock in the morning to say a dead Mass." 

« You may as weU take your special artist with you," said Frank, 
" I should like to see a little island life." 

"All right, my boy, I'll have you out of the bed at six sharp." 

" We must get a boat to bring us all out some day, Father," said 
Sydney. " Ida is mad on ruins." 

"We'll gratify her fancy, my dear," he answered, laughing. 
" We'll show them to her, ancient and modem. She couldn't go for 
them to a better locality." 

" I prefer the antique," said Ida " Age is twofold in its action ; 
it adds to and it takes from the beauty of many things. I certainly 
think it is very desirable in a ruin." 

" Except in a human ruin, my dear — eh ?" asked Father Moran. 

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The Monk's Prophecy. 641 

"U a person be really beautiful, age won't destroy it|" she 
replied. 

" Bight, my dear/' said the priest, looking at her with a pleased, 
graye smila " Beauty of soul ia indestructible, but it is not eyexy 
eye that looks beneath the surface.'* 

The priest and Prank L'Estrange took their leaye, the former 
haying engaged them all to dine with him on Sunday. Miss White 
soon retired, attended by the girls, who saw her comfortably 
settled in bed ; they then wandered out for a few moments into the 
quiet night, broken only by the musical sound of falling waters, and 
the occasional melancholy note of a curlew from the shores of the 
distant riyer. Great stars throbbed in the bending heayens, and masses 
of dark shadows lay almost motionless on the moonlit earth beneath 
the gentiy swaying trees. To Ida, accustomed to spend her days 
in the crowded city, the sense of peace and purity was exquisite. 
" This is Nature," she said, ** her yery arms are about me ; up to this 
I but dasped her by the hand.*' 

Sydney fell asleep that night with a feeling of happiness, the per- 
vading one ; yet she grieyed for the tender mother without whom she 
had neyer lain down to rest there before. Father Moran had told 
her a good deal about the Wyndills ; but though she loyed them she 
turned away from the thought of oyer having to part with those who 
were now dearer to her than all the world. The hope of going to the 
Wyndills had been her mother's hope, not hers. If she could do 
something at home, something that would make her independent like 
Ida. But who was like Ida ? and — ^Frank? Well, they would have 
one happy three weeks anyway, and the good God would take care of 
her, and not separate her from those she loyed. 

The halcyon days slipped by, of which they made aU possible use, 
roaming oyer hill and dale, through glen and greenwood. Sydney 
was a delighted cicerone, showing the artist eyery bit of effective 
landscape and river-yiew. Father Moran came to them almost every 
evening, and found Miss White excellent company. 

(hie afternoon he and the three young people went out to one of 
the islands, where he had a sick call. The sinking sun was throwing 
its level rays along the shining waters when they were returning. 
The priest, and Ida who had become a great favourite of his, were 
engaged in one of their usual serio-comic conversations at one end, 
while Sydney and the artist sat silent at the other. She had 
pushed back her hat, and the sun tinging her ruffled golden hair, 
made what Frank thought an aureole above the face. She was 
dipping her fingers into the water, making the tiny wavelets break 
into foam by keeping her hand against the current. He watched her 
with an expression half sad, half tender, in his eyes. What a picture 
she would make as she sat thus in beautiful unconciousness; he should 

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642 The MonKs Prophecy. 

paint her after that sketch of Oeoffrey'B, ''The Water Spirit beneath 
Foalanaes ; " he would ask her to sit to him, though he knew every 
expression on the innocent face, evexy line of the girlish form. Was 
the old painter's fair-haired wife, with whom the world is familiar, as 
sweet as this pure specimen of budding womanhood ? — ^his wife. It 
was a musical word. When would 'he win a wife ? It would take a 
few years yet before he could indulge in loye ; he must shut out all 
tender thoughts : it was well for him he was so strong. What would 
be the fate of Sydney ? Would those grand friends be kind to her? 
Would she be married to that early playmate whose name was now so 
often on her lips? Por every place she showed him was associated 
with memories of Eustace. She would pass out of hU life by-and-by ; 
ehe came into it a dove-like apparition, and her departure woidd 
leave a little emptiness which would be filled up with occupation and 
hard work. George Elliott was right, though : " life is a difficult 
thing.'' But " sufficient for the day." The present was his to enjoy. 

They landed at the little pier, and walked on gaily to the Hut 
The hall-door was rarely dosed, and just as they reached it the door 
of the sitting-room was flimg open, and a young man caught Sydney 
in his arms. 

"0 Eustace!*' she cried, dinging to him, "Eustace; when did 
you come?" 

'' Half an hour ago," he answered. " My darling 8yd, how glad I 
am to see yoxu There was a panic abroad on account of you ; we 
thought you were lost. And, dear Father Moran, how is every robe's 
length of you?" 

" Well, my boy," said Father Moran, as they shook hands warmly, 
^' and right glad to see you." 

" Won't you introduce me to your friends, Syd P They must be 
mine for taldng such care of yoii." He shook hands with them cordi- 
ally, and turned to get another look at Ida's face. " And Sydney 
actually grown a young woman," he continued, taking her hands and 
holding her at arm's length, " and not a bad looking one either, faith. 
Wouldn't think of an undignified scamper at all now, I suppose ?" 

" Indeed rU never be dignified," said Sydney, dasping both hands 
on his arm. " But, tell me, how is Mrs. Wyndill and Mr. Wyndill and 
the children P" 

" They are right well : Winnie is not very strong, though and 
ihey are to come here before Christmas. I have six months' leave ; 
60 we shall be happy as birds when Winnie is back. She will never 
be able to thank your kind friends." 

"Miss White won't allow you to thank her," said Ida; "ilwasa 
happiness to her to have Sydney with her." She and Frwk went in- 
doors, and left Sydney, Father Moran, and Eustace together. 

A sudden sadness fell upon them as they sat in the^arloim **I 

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The Monk's Prophecy. 643 

wish he stayed awa J f or tbe next fortnight,*' saidlda; ''he has mined 
our holidays. What will we do after Sydney, mammy ?" 

'* My dear, she is not gone at all yet; we shall haye her to our- 
selyes for months to oome. Don't be cast down, darling, and spoil the 
present by anticipating the future. I like that Mr. M'Mahon ; — ^he 
seems to be a good-hearted young man.*" 

In a few moments Sydney and her companions entered, and Nellie 
brought in the tea. Eustace was in the most exuberant spirits ; talk- 
of his experiences abroad, the natiye peculiarities, his yoyage home, 
and his hunt for Sydney in Dublin. 

" Carrie is a wonderful woman for knowing nothing," said he ; 
<< only for a momentary inspiration which put Mrs. Barry into my head, 
there would be an adyertisement in the Frumm now, offering a reward 
for you, Syd." 

'* You had left before Winnie got our last letters," said Father 
Moran ; " so, of course, you knew nothing of her whereabouts." 

'' Not a word, till Mrs. Barry told me eyerything. Poor Syd had a 
hard time of it, and it is not eyeryone happens to find such friends in 
need. Well, 'tis past now, Sydney : those dark days of yours are oyer ; 
a happy future will blot them out of your memory." 

" I shall neyer be happier than I haye been since Miss White tookme 
in," said Sydney, putting her hand under the arm of the little lady, 
beside whom she was sitting, <' I couldn't be." 

** And I oyer the water !" Eustace replied, laughing joyously ; '' I 
don't belieye a word of it. Do you, Father Moran P" 

*'But 'tis loyely to haye you come while we are here, Eustace," 
she said, after joining in his laugh, *' it will be like old times to me." 

The artist got up, murmuring something about the brightness of 
the night. 

'^ I say, L'Estrange, don't fill your pipe awhile, taking a shabby 
adyantage of me," called out Eustace ; '' I shall join you presently. 
Where shall we go to-morrow ?*' he continued, turning to the girls ; 
— << choose. Miss L'Estrange." 

<< Eyery place is new to me," she answered ; '' I haye no will of 
my own for the present." 

" Is that amiable negatiye mood your usual one f" he asked. 

''I fear not," she replied, with one of her rare smiles; ^'Ihayeyery 
decided likes and dislikes. Where would you like to go, Sydney ?" 

'< Pm sure Eustace wishes to go see Mrs. Gale," said Sydney. 
'' That is an old habit of his, asking you politely what you would wish 
to do, but he could get you to do as he liked in the end." 

'< Was I not right. Miss L'Estrange f answered Eustace. ''A 
man must be masterful or he will be disregarded. If I did not rule 
Sidney, but allowed her to haye her own way, she would not adore me 
as she does. How would you like to be subjugated ?" _ . 

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644 ^^ Monks Prophecy. 

** Yeij badly, Mr. M'Mahon ; I'm not at all of a soft temperament. 
My instinot is to role alao. But what about Bathmoylan f* 

" I most go see my old friend Mrs. Gale, certainly, and I think a 
woodland walk wonld greatly refresh my ezhanated energies. Don*t 
I look pale and worn, 8yd?' 

" Pale I" answered Sydney, " why, yon are as brown as Ida's hat, 
and, indeed, yon are not worn; yon have grown quite fat." 

*' Fat !" he repeated ; " what a word to use in connection with my 
appearance ; little girls like you never know what constitutes a good- 
looking fellow ; but, really, I have been worked to death in the office. 
Miss L'Estrange," he went on pathetically, '' had to keep a handy 
black to tie wet towels round my pallid brow. You can fancy how I 
will relish country rambles." 

•'You but play at work," she replied, shaking her head; "you 
cannot enjoy holidays as we do." 

*• Who are ' we' ?" he asked. 

" Well, I myself, for instance." 

'< And what great work do you achieve P Wax flowers, Berlin 
wool, fender stools, point-lace, antimacassars ?" 

^< No," she saidf ** nothing so delicate. I am a teacher." 

"A teacher of what?" 

•* A teacher of music," she answered, " I earn my bread by it" 

For a moment he looked confounded ; but a question from Father 
Moran did away with the necessity for making any remark on Ida's 
calm disdoBure of her employement. 

Shakspeare says, "it is a bitter thing to look at happiness 
through other people's eyes;'' and Frank L' Estrange, as he walked 
up and down in the moonlight, though he did not advert to the poef s 
comment on the emotion, felt a good deal of its bitterness. It is by 
contrast we measure most things, and poverty has not at all bo de- 
formed an appearance until it is placed in juxtaposition with plenty. 
We become conscious of our worn coat, the littie piece on our boot, the 
meanness of sparing sixpence, and the imutterable beauty of pros- 
perity, when we are thrown into the company of one, dowered with 
no better blood or brains, whose tailor does him justice, who 
pulls out a handful of sovereigns and silver to give a ahilling to a 
beggar, and who has power to possess himself of those lawful happi- 
nesses, whose unattainable sweetness is but to us like the fabled 
draught of Tantalus. 

The artist walked on to the bridge and laid his folded arms on it. 
There was no use in hiding it any longer from himself ; he loved Sidney. 
Poverty ruled their destinies; it brought them together, and 
it would separate them. He would enter the lists with Eustace, and 
try to win her if he had a home to offer her ; but he had no home, 
and he should suffer in silence, and see her taken away4>y thiB.forto- 

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The Monks Prophecy. 645 

nate stranger, who did not even recognise any pain or difficulty in her 
giving np those friends who had stood to her in her sorest need. And 
had he but the means, he might have won her love. She cared for 
him in her frank, girlish way ; half for himself, half because he was 
Ida's brother ; but the chance was lost ; it was one of the missed hap- 
nesses of life, his place was taken by her old companion, who would 
absorb all her attention. 

Where was all his boasted strength P Had the fair face of a girl 
so unmanned him, making havoc of his peace of mind ; and his cedm 
resolutions to avoid sentiment till heooidd afford to indulge it, coming 
like a haunting dream between him and those artistic visions that 
now seemed vague and imsatisfying ? Well, he had only to crush 
down this strange hunger of the heart, and keep his folly to himself. 
He would go away ; he could not bear the next month, if this new 
elem ent remained to embitter it ; and evidently he intended remaining. 
He would find some excuse and go away. It was now Thursday, he 
would be off on Saturday, and forget his brief delirium in his beloved 
art and its attendant hard work. Braced up by his sensible resolves, 
he returned to the Hut, and the laughing voices as he approached it 
made him realise more thoroughly how little he was missed, or neces- 
sary to anyone, but his sister. 

"I don't find any ungodly odour, L'Estrange," said Eustace, 
'^ which gives an impetus to my faith in man." 

" Give impetus to your legs now, my dear boy," remarked Father 
If oran ; " 'tis after ten. Are you sure you are comfortable at Castle- 
ishen, Eustace?" 

"Perfectly, my dear sir. We are bound for Eathmoylan, to- 
morrow, L'Estrange, so be up to time. Sydney may be thankful if 
she hasn't me down before breakfast ; but perhaps, I may lessen my 
value by being too agreeable ; better for me look you up at Father 
Horan's, L'Estrange; we'll hunt in couples and be able for them. 
Oood-night, Miss White : I hope we have not kept you up too long ; 
good- night. Miss L'Estrange: we shall renew that remarkable 
argument of ours to-morrow ; good-by, Syd : you have grown too big 
to be kissed, I suppose, except in tragic moments of exits and entrances. 
I rather like tragic moments, don't you, L'Estrange ?" 

•' If you haven't sense, my poor boy, can't you pretend you have it, 
for the sake of your family ?" said Father Moran. 

" By Jove, I didn't think you were listening, sir ; my little confes- 
sion was meant for an aside. Have a cigar, L'Estrange ; it intensi- 
fies the beauty and pathos of moonlight. Who has a match ? I shall go 
in to Nellie. By George, NelUe, that's a fire to gladden the blue cold 
nose of the Last Minstrel. I am sorry I didn't bring you home a 
black husband ; you'd keep him as hot as a pie." 

" lysh/atha ga tho,** answered Nellie. " I never had muA mind^ 

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646 2he Monk's Prophecy. 

for a white hiuband, not to talk of a black one. The Lord saye ns 
from sin ; sure 'tis the divil Pd think I had alongside me. Does thero 
be any black ladies, Mr. Eustace ?" 

'' Lots of them, woman : — splendid girls. You oouldnH put such a 
polish on your boots as they have on their soft cheeks. TU bring 
home one of them some fine day, and any amount of tin, Nellie." 

''Terra what tin," said Nellie, in a tone of great disg^t; *' laye 
her beyant, for Gh>d's sake. Is it to haye children ruiming about you 
like black hmnuv%, I'd be afraid to rear them, faith." 

'' For the sake of posterity I'll be cautious," said Eustace, laughing 
merrily ; — " but the money is a temptation, Nellie." 

Father Moran and the two young men departed : the girls standing 
at the hall-door, could hear the gay yoice of Eustace as they went down 
the road. 

*' How do you like him, Ida ?** asked Sydney; " did I exaggerate ?" 

''No," answered Ida ; " he is a nice fellow, and one whom it is 
easy to see the world went smoothly with." She sighed, for she 
thought of the precarious liyelihood of her hard-worked brother, and 
secretly wished he had such well-made clothes as Mr. M'Mahon. 

The next morning the four young people walked off to Eathmoylan. 
Miss White usually remained at home, where she was quite happy, 
sitting outside the door knitting her quilt, talking to Nellie and aU 
the countrywomen who came to see Sydney. It was true for that 
sagacious young housekeeper their expenses at the Hut were yeiy 
trifling. Ili^ got eggs, butter and fowl from eyery quarter, and 
Father Moran's housekeeper had long and frequent consultations with 
Nellie which usually resulted in something pleasantly tangible. 

Frank L'Estrange made yaxious attempts to assert his independence 
by taking lodgings in the yiUage, but he was pooh-poohed by Father 
Moran, and made Sydney so unhappy he resigned the idea. He then 
had a secret interyiew with Miss White, who faithfully promised that 
he would be allowed to pay for eyerything that had to be bought, and 
so the first ten days passed by. 

The walking pariy wended their way to the forest. Frank 
lingered for a moment to pluck a hart's tongue fern he saw beneath 
the hedge. Sydney looked back and then waited for him. 

" I shsll show you better ones later on," she said ; " they are beauti- 
ful near the Druid's altar. Did you not notice them the last day." 

" Yes, there are a number of them about here, they look better 
among ferns of a different class than by themselyes." 

" I wish we could go up to Black Head," said Sydney ; " the 
driye [round it is splendid, and such a place ^f or wild flowers : but 
Eustace is to bring us across the riyer on Monday you know." 

"I fear I shall not be able to go with you," he answered. "I 
am thinking of going away to-morrow." 

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Tie Monies Prophecy. 647 

Sydney ptit out her hand, with a pretty gesture she used when 
startled, as if she were pushing something from her, *' Gk>ing away/' 
«he repeated, looking at him in hlank amazement. 

«< I am growing too idle," he said, with a forced laugh, " and that 
would never do ; — would it ?" 

*' You are not serious," she answered ; ^* you are not thinking of 
going?" 

'' Yes, I am. What matter does it make whether I go or stay," 
he said, a little bitterly ; '' you can enjoy yourselves without me.** 

*' No, we cannot," die replied ; '' it will destroy everything. Ida 
will be utterly disappointed. Ah, donH go, for pity sake." 

*' But you won't want me," he said ; *' Mr. M'Mahon will take my 
place as squire of dames. I would not go if I were necessary." 

'' You are necessary, indeed you are ; we would not have the least 
pleasure ; not the least ; — and we looking forward to a whole month 
yet" 

" Is not your old friend enough for you, Sydney, for the present ? 
You would not miss a new one. Would you ?" 

'' Surely I would ; — ^my new friends are more to me than anyone in 
the world," she answered, passing her fingers over her lashes; 
"though, indeed, I am fond of Eustace and the Wyndills." 

*' And if the new friends care for you too much, won't it be hard on 
them when you go away^ don't you think ?" 

"It will be harder on me," she answered. "I try not to think 
of it. If I could only do something like Ida; but I am good for 
nothing." 

" Ah, you foolish little maid ! you must always have someone to 
work for you, and take care you don't get lost." — His voice had 
taken a more cheerful tone. " But what would Mr. M'Mahon say if he 
knew he wasn't sufficient for you P I imagined you would be playing 
Juliet to his Bomeo." 

" With Eustace !" she cried, with a blush and a laugh ; — '' what an 
idea ! We will never care for each other in thoA way. But say you 
won't go P' 

'' What am I to do ? Obey you or my conscience, Sydney." 

'* Ah, me, for this once, and conscience has nothing to do with it 
Ijet us be happy this one little month ;— don't go till we all go." 

She lifted her eyes in mute entreaty, and Frank's prudential re- 
solves, self-abnegation, and consciousness of circumstances melted 
away. He would remain : he would win her ; — she would wait for 
him for a few years till fortune enabled him to many. He was 
always eloquent on the imprudence of engagements, and the foUy of a 
jnan asking a girl to have him until he was in a position to enter the 
holy state of matrimony ; now the matter stood in an altered light, and 
he looked on the position of two faithful hearts, loving, trusting, and 

Vot. X. Ho. 112. Digiti JO by GoOglC 



648 The Widom 0/ Nairn. 

waiting till time peimitted ih^ tmioiiy aa a most f eUdtons anaage- 
ment. Why should he scruple to take her from tiie WyndiUs ? — afae 
was in no wise necessary to the happiness of their lives, as she was to 
his. It was impossible th^ could love and eherish her as he 
would. And for herself: would it not be better after all] for her 
to link her fate with his than to renudn^dependent on friends, or 
marry someone else who might not love her so tenderly ? If he onlj 
could succeed and get enough of work I Well, let time dedide--«iid 
Sydney. His gloom and discontent vanished. They quidcened tikeir 
pace, which had unconsciously slackened, and joined Eustace and Ida, 
who were evidently enjoying themselves if meny voices and lauj^iter 
could be taken as a proof of the fact. 

(T0 1$ eoniinuid.) 



THE WIDOW OP NAUf .• 



FOBTH from the city gate of Naim, 
A sombre throng of mourners came ; 
For a widow was reft of her only son, 
And the multitude wept with the childless one. 
Oh, the mystic might of the mother's prayer ! 
Her son is gone— her God is there ! 
Lo! sacred tears refulgent shine 
'Neath the brow of pitying Love Divine, 
And the Word yet speaketh : '' Young man, arise !" 
As light leaps forth from the stony ^es. 
And the bosom heaves with refluent breath 
At the voice of the Lord of life and death ! 

As He hung on the all-redeeming Tree, 
He gave me^ Mary ! as son to thee ; 
Mother ! weep o'er my sin and shame. 
Weep o*er thy lost child as she of Naim ; 
And thy Ood in pity shall sure restore 
Life to my sinful soul once mora 

* See Luke tiL, the Ck>0pel of the Fifteenth Sunday after Penteeoat, viaoh 
I thia year the feait of the Name of Mary. 



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( 649 ) 



NEW BOOKS. 

The Poem of Denis Fhrenee Mac Oarihy. (Dublin : M. H. Gill ft Son, 

1882.) 
Wjb place tlus Tolume in front of all onr book-notices, thai it may 
be the more sure to catch the eye of even the careless reader. It 
contains substantially the whole of the original poetry of our lost 
Poet Laureate, and it has wisely been brought out in a very cheap, 
though pleasing form, under the auspices of the Committee established 
for securing a fitting memorial of the poet. We trust that all our 
readers will at once possess themselveB of this exquisite collection, and 
that none of them, siter reading it, will fail to forward the Memorial 
by at least one subscription — if not their own, that of their parents or 
others whom they may be able to influence. 

The poet's eldest son, Mr. John MacOarthy, has edited the yolume 
with consummate taste and skill, and with a carefulness and ripeness 
of knowledge which no other could bring to the task. We wish he had 
allotted at least twice as much space to the biographical introduction, 
which, with characteristic modesty he merely calls a preface. But, no 
^oubt he is right in reserving his strength, and will give us more here- 
after of the life and correspondence of his amiable and gifted father. 

Nothing is further from our idea at present than to enter into any 
criticism of Mr. MacOarthy's poems. Our loving annotations upon 
some of them we reserve for another time. But would not most. poets 
fare better with the general public if for the benefit of ^Qprofanum 
vul^uif who are too hurried and too unsympathetic to find out the best 
for themselves, a selection were made of tiie poet's best — say a 
baker's dozen of his choicest poems ? What would be Wordsworth's 
twelve or Moore's twelve ? We dare to name as our favourites 
among the Poems of Denis Florence Mac Oarthy, ^* Waiting for the 
May," " The Bridal of the Tear," The Spirit of the Snow," " To the 
Bay of Dublin," "Not Known," "The Vale of Shanganagh," 
"A Lament," "A Shamrock from the Irish Shore," "Kate of Ken- 
mare," and " The Irish Emigrant's Mother." Anyone who reads 
these, and who completes our dozen with two of the longer poems, 
"Alice and Una," and " The Bell Founder," will love and admire 
Denis Florence Mac Carthy as one of the sweetest and truest poets of 
our time and race. 

II. The Way of Beligioue Perfection in the Spiritual Exeroisee of St. 

Jjjnatiue of Loyola; or^ Meditations and Leetwesfor a Retreat of eight 

or ten days, for the Members of Beligums Orders. By the Bey. Jomr 

CuBTis, S.J. (Dublin : M. H. QiLl & Son. 1882.) 

Nomtm prematur in annum seems a cruel edict to the youth who has 

his first work ready for the press. Keep it back for nine years more I 

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650 



New Books. 



How will the world be able to get on 00 long withont it P Later on 
in life a space of nine years does not appear so formidable a delay. 
Father Curtis has obeyed the Horatian precept, perhaps live times 
over. The present work is the fruit of his vast experience as the guide 
of religious souls during much more than half a century. It is an 
inyaluable addition to the ascetic literature of the English language, 
and willy we have no doubt, be studied assiduously by many genera* 
tionSy espedaily of the religious sisterhoods of Ireland. For to nearly 
all of these Father Curtis might haye dedicated it in the words tiiat 
haye just been addressed by Bishop Ullathome to the English Domi- 
nicanesses : '' Haying watched oyer your congregation from its cradle, 
haying also co-operated with its holy Foundress in its formation and 
expansion, I haye desired to complete this book, and to place it in 
your hands as some token of my paternal affection, as some memorial 
of my solicitude for your solid instruction, which your filial gratitude 
may pass on to the generations that come after you." 

For those of our readers who are familiar with the order of spi- 
ritual exercises in a full retreat of eight or ten days no analysis is 
needed of the contents of this yolume. A glance at the yery deariy 
arranged table of contents wiU show that no subject of importance 
has been oyerlooked ; and a glance oyer some of the meditations or 
considerations will show the fulness, order, solidity, and unction with 
which eyery subject is treated. The large and bold type, and the 
excellent paper and binding, contribute to the practical utility of the 
work. 

Complevit Idbora tjuM is one of the benedictions of the just man. 
The yenerable author of this Spiritual Betreat has been allowed to 
'' complete his work," not prematurely or with undue haste ; and its 
fruitf nlness is sure to be all the more lasting. It is a transcendent 
grace to haye any share in the holiest hours of the holiest lifetimes. 

m. The Foray of Quem MaevOf and other Legonde of IreUmd'o Horok 
Ago. By Attbrbt db Yerb. (London: 0, Kegan Paul, Trench, 
and Co. 1882.) 

Wb merely transcribe this titie-page here for the purpose of keeping 
it before our readers' notice and our own. The Noyember issue of 
this Magazine will contain an extended reyiew of Mr. de Yere's latest 
and not least noble contribution to our poetical literature. As these 
legends are drawn from times ecurlier than the "Legends of St 
Patrick," there is scope for the 'display of only two of the '' fidelities" 
signalised by Father Ryder in dedicating his recent exquisite yolume 
to "one whose life has been a hi^py blending of fidelities to Mb 
Church, his country, and his muse." 



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New Books. 651 

IV. The Groundwork of the Chrisiitm FtriuM. A Course of Leeturee. 

By BiaHOP Ullathoene. (London: Bums & Gates. 1882.) 
Evmr wIiOTi we have studied this splendid octavo, we shall hardly feel 
ourselves justified in presuming to offer any criticism or recommen- 
dation beyond the most superficial description of its contents. It 
is the stateliest tome that has issued from the Catholic press since 
"Christian Schools and Scholars," and there is a closer connection 
between these two works than an external family likeness, for no 
doubt with the names of Hedelithaand Margaret and Imelda, another 
name would be linked in the bishop's very graceful dedication, but 
for the sacred prohibition, ne laudes hominem in vita sua, Eomo is not 
confined to one gender, but includes the author of " Songs in the 
Night." "When we mention that the volume consists of five hundred 
of the largest octavo pages, and that the printing, which is simply 
perfect in its clearness and finish, is not of that style which gives as 
little matter as possible on a page, but rather the largest amount that 
is agreeably readable, it will be easy to conjecture the depth and 
amplitude with which all the questions are discussed relating to the 
nature and practice of true Christian humility. Our gratitude is due 
to the venerable Bishop of Birmingham for giving us permanently in 
this book the ripened fruit of years of deep meditation^ wide study, 
and fervent prayer, 

IV. Unch Faffs Cabin; or, Life among the Agricultural Labourers of 
Ireland. By W. C. Upto». (Dublin : M. H. Gill & Son. 1882.) 

This book is not likely to attain as wide a circulation as " Uncle Tom*s 
Cabin.'' It puts forward in a striking way some important facts 
about the actual condition of certain classes of Irishmen, and makes 
many suggestions which our legislators would do well to take into 
consideration. It goes too deeply into contemporary politics to be' 
safely criticised here ; and so does the conclusion of a penny " Gate- 
ohism of Irish Histoiy," published by Mr. John Denvir of Liverpool. 

V. The Granville Reading Book. Fourth Standard. (London : Bums & 
Gates.) 

We have a bitter complaint to make against the compiler of this 
excellent selection. There are many touches of good taste and inge- 
nuity, as where he appends to the passage from Dickens about poor 
little Paul Dombey at the seaside. Glover's duet, "What are the 
Wild Waves Saying ?" which is prettier than most songs of the sort. 
How, then, has the compiler incurred our displeasure ? For his cruelty 
and injustice in suppressing the names of all the writers. Is it 
fair to the amiable memory of Longfellow that the young students of 
this "Ghranville Heading Book*' should peruse here his "Children's 
Hour" without seeing his name at the end of it, or getting any oppor- 

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b^i New Books. 

tanity of flaying <' what a good heart Longfellow had !'' Some pieoet 
xnnst remain anonymous, but why shoiild anonymity spread its ehroud 
oyer evezy piece of verse and prose in the '' Oranyille Beading Book f 
There is a tradition (coming down from a remote antiquity that the 
present reviewer, aiati% five or six, was present at a discussion in 
which the disputants pleaded the cause, each of his or her favourite 
poet, when suddenly a sturdy little critic (not cricket) spoke up from 
his seat on the hearthrug and said that hii favourite was the poet 
Anon — which word he accented on the first syllable, and took for an 
ordinary surname, like Scott or Moore. But now that he is *' twenty- 
three years old and upwards," as discreet spinsters swear in affidants, 
he objects vehemently to his old friend Mr. Anon filching from the 
Bev. Charles Kingsley the great credit of having written ''TheSanda 
of Dee" — to which such a charming little picture caUs attention. The 
illustrations in this shilling Beading Book are vezy good. 

VI. Trieit and Poet, and other Poems. By J. D. Lykch. (Dublin: 

James DufPy A Sons.) 
We think that it is of these poems we before expressed this opinion, 
that the choice of themes, rather than the treatment of them, showed 
the writer to possess a poetical temperament. The diction and rhythm 
seem to us to be often more than faulty. The poem to which the most 
prominence is assigned is in a stamea which would be musical if the 
third line rhymed with the first. As it is, the ear is disappointed eveiy 
time. Such technical errors spoil the majority of the pieces. Some- 
times Mr. Lynch dispenses with rhyme altogether, even in lyrical 
pieces, and it speaks well for the poetical turn of his thoughts that the 
result is not much worse than it is. The distinctly religious seem to 
us the best. We had marked for quotation ''The Eucharist'* and 
^< A Yisit," and the sonnets to the newly beatified mendicant. Benedick 
Joseph Labre. The promise held out by this volume must be partly 
measured by the age of the writer and other circumstances in which 
it is produced. 
Yn. The Life and Times of the Most Bev. John MaeSale, ArMUhop of 

Tuam. By the Very Eev. TT. J. Canok Boumb, P.P., MJLLA 
(Dublin : M. H. Oill & Son. 1882.) 
Thb subject, the author, and the price of this biography— only a shil*. 
ling— are enough to win for it the patronage of our readers, even if 
we do not hereafter (as we hope) devote more of our space to this long 
and useful career. Oanon Bourke has overlooked a most eloquent 
tribute paid to the great Archbishop of the West by Thomas Enmds 
M eagher in one of his American speeches. 

Vni. Ztfe of the Good Thief From the French of Mor. Gaum. Done 

into English by M. bb Lislb. (London : Bums & Oates. 1882.) 
OuB wonder at seeing two hundred and fifty compactly^though veiy 

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New Books. 653 

readably, printed pages devoted to the Good Thief, whose story in the 
Gospel ocot^ies only a few lines, is diminished when we perceive that 
Monsignor Qanme disonsses a great many other subjects connected 
with ^e Passion of our Divine Lord, l^e translation is extremely 
well executed, and we wish, indeed, that all this skill and care had 
been expended on works still more worthy of them, such as the learned 
apologetical works of M. Auguste Nicolas. 

IX. Ave Maria ; or, Cateshy^s Story. By the Eev. Pbakois Drew. 
(London: B.Washboume. 1882.) 

This is called '' a story for children," but that description would lead 
one to expect something more childish than is here served up to us. 
Though each of the ''Little Books of St. Nicholas'' is complete in 
itself, the present one is the sequel of " Credo," and it is itself on its 
last page left in such a state that the broken thread of the narrative 
may be taken up in another of these diminutive volumes, like the end 
house in an unfinished street. It is pleasantly written ; but is there 
enough of incident to interest the sort of boys for whom alone it can 
be intended ? 

X. The Golden Thought of Queen Beryl, and other Stortee. By Mabii 
Camsbon. (London: Washboume.) 

Thb " other stories" are " The Bod that bore Blossoms," " Patience 
and Impatience," and " The Brother's Grave." They are neatly and 
brightly written, and got out in that attractive way which is common 
to all Mr. Washboume's story-books. 

XI. The JSiitory of the Bleeeed Virgin Mary. Translated from the 
French of the Abb6 Orsini. By the Very Rev. F, 0. Husewbith, 
D.D., V.G., Provost of Northampton. (Dublin : M. H. Gill & 
Son. 1882.) 

This is a new edition, with eight excellent full-page illustrations after 
famous paintings, of the learned and devout work which the late Dr. 
Husenbeth^translated. Every point connected with the history and 
dignity of the Blessed Virgin is adequately discussed in the text 
or in tiie notes. 

Xn. Enchiridion Clerieorum : being a Bute of Life for JScelesiaetiee. 
By the Author of " Programmes of Sermons and Instructions." 
(Dublin : Browne and Nolan. 1882.) 

This " Clerical Manual" contains very minute and practical instruc- 
tions for priests with regard to " their principal obligations, in refe- 
rence to their sacred ministry and their own sanctification, as also 
their intercourse with the world, including an Examination of Oon- 
sdence for Betreats." It will be of immense utility, especially to 
young and inexperienced priests; but indeed there is no priest who 

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654 ^^^ Books. 

can read without great profit and edification any part of thia work, 
and especially the sixty pages of minute practical questions which 
make up the '' Examination of Oonsdenoe in a Betreaf It can, of 
course, he supplied to priests only, and we coonsel any ecdesiaBtic 
under whose eye this notice may fall to procure a copy. As a matter 
of symmetry, it is a pity that sixty pages of appendix are added, 
which properly helong to a distinct work, '* Programmes of Sennons 
and Instructions." But there is less inconvenience in this addition, 
as the eight works hy the same author may be considered as one series. 
Though that author suppresses his name, we venture to congratulate 
the Yincentian Father MacNamara, Bector of the Irish College at 
Paris, on being allowed to contribute so effectively to the sanctification 
of many generations of priestly souls. 

XIII. Mary Beatrice ; or, DUcrmoned and Crowned. By a Sistsk of 
Mercy. (New Orleans. 1882.) 

Amplb as was the catalogue we furnished last month of the writings 
of An Irish- American Nun," we left unnamed some of the publica- 
tions of Mother Austin Carroll of New Orleans. Besides another 
volume of stories '' By the Seaside," she has composed for convent 
schools three little historical dramas, the one named above, along with 
'* Marie Antoinette," and *' Three Scenes from the Life of Mary Queen 
of Scots." In this context we may name with praise, as we are not 
sure we named it before, " Mercy's Conquest," a tiny play by Annie 
Allen. (London : Bums & Oates.) A sample of a higher class of con- 
vent-play comes from Australia, though published by the Dublin firm 
of James Duffy and Sons. The beauty and vigour of " Aleilat" wUl not 
surprise those who know that its author is the Bev.William Kelly, 8. J. 

XIV. Arte and IndusMee in Ireland. By S. A. (Dublin: M. H. 
Gill & Son. 1882.) 

TJif DEB this common heading are grouped a sketch of the life and works 
of the sculptor of the O'Connell Monument, John Henry Foley, R.A. 
and ''Irish Wool and Woollens, passages from the histoiy of the 
staple trade." The first sketch, with which our readers are partially 
acquainted, contains in its perfected form chapters on the artist's be- 
quest to Ireland, on his youth and early studies, first triumphs, fame 
assured, the sculptor in his studio, the sculptor in his home, and then 
his last works and last days. This is the first adequate account of the 
career of the great Irish sculptor, whose last achievement is the O'Con- 
nell Monument, not even yet completed, but manifestly worthy of 
being even Foley's last. The materials of this biography were not 
before in print, but have been gathered laboriously by " S. A.," by 
inquiries from the sculptor's relatives and eveiy othw available source 
of information. The skill with which these materials are used is only 

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Alice Treherne. 655 

CKinalled by the indoBtiy whibh oolleoted them. It is a briUiant and 
thoroughly eatisfactory biographical aketdu^ 

Almost more original and more interesting is the second part of 
this work, giying the curious and eventful story of the woollen manu- 
factures of Ireland. This is not one of those apparently erudite 
essays, of which the erudition can be cheaply got up from a few ency- 
dopsodias and old magazines ; it is the fruits of researches in out-of- 
the-way sources, which only skilled industry, sustained by a tranquil 
enthusiasm, could have patience to explore. Half a sentence may be 
the result of much study and a careful collation of authorities. The 
clearness and elegance of the style in which the facts are set forth 
would be admirable eyen in one who had the facts ready to hand and 
had nothing else to attend to but the way of using them. When we 
recollect that the same writer has giyen us the Life of Mrs. Aiken- 
head, the Poundress of the Irish Sisters of Charity, and much other 
good work which the modesty of true merit has sternly kept anony- 
mous, we can partly understand the obligations that Irish literature 
lies under to '' S. A.," and our regret increases that we are only 
allowed to offer our gratitude to a pair of initials. 



ALICE TEEHERNE. 

BY lots. FRAHK PSNTULL. 
I. 



IT was May at Hampton Court, and among the trees the birds made 
the sweetest concert, while the tall chestnuts were bowing their 
powdered heads and murmuring to each other. " It is like an old 
court ball," said Alice Treheme, to whom all things were fresh and 
beautiful. "Yes," answered her companion; ''and see, the butter- 
cups are the Cinderellas, who have come to take a peep." So, 
laughing, they passed on under the trees, and were followed by 
another couple, older and sadder. 

''I hope she wiU be happy," said gentle Lady Walston to her 
husband. 

" Happy I " repeated he, impatiently ; "how can she help it? — 
Gordon is rich, young, handsome." 

" But their opinions, their tastes." 

The old gentleman shrugged^his shoulders. "Child's nonsense,** 

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656 Alice Trtheme. 

said he, and struck a daisy iriih his stiok, while his wife stooped to 
Hither a little flower which his foot had idmost crashed. 

An hour later Sir Heniy and Lady Walston had taken refage 
from the son, and were sitting among the piotores, but Alice and Mr. 
Oordon still stood beneath the trees, though now they laughed no 
longer; but she, with pale face and downcast eyes, listened to his 
words. 

'' Oannot you trust me ?" he was saying; '' cannot you think that 
Sir Henry, that your aunt, that I know better than you ? Are we all 
wrong, and you alone right P" 

'* I would gladly yield, if I might; but I oannot sell my soul, eren 
for happiness," answered Alice. 

'' Then you do not really love me,*' cried the young man, and his 
eyes shone like steel, and his mouth grew hard and stem. 

Did she not love him P Would she not have given up for his 
sake wealth, position, all life's pleasures, erexything but her father^s 
faith 7 Ah, willingly she would, but she only said with a sigh, ^' It is 
impossible." 

The dzire home was yeiy silent, and after the formal dinner, at 
which Mr. Gordon did not appear, Alice went up at once to her room. 
Her old nurse saw that something had grieved her; so, with a mur- 
mured '' God bless my darling," she left her alone, and then Alice sat 
a long time in the silence, while the moon and the trees made fan* 
tastic shadows on the walls, and as she watched them her life seemed 
to pass before her. 

She saw first a pretfy cottage, where she roamed among the 
flowers, or in the twilight sat at the open window and listened to her 
mother singing some simple litany in which her baby voice could join. 
Then she heard in the hall the voices of angry men ; she saw the 
servants' scared faces ; her father was holding her to his heart, and 
whispering words of farewell and of hope. 

Another scene. This time it is a London lodging, and on a 
wretched bed her mother is lying ; by her side sits Sir Heniy, his f aoe 
softened by sorrow : for he is listening to the last words of his only 
sister. 

" My child has but you in the world," says poor Mrs. Treheme ; 
'' and yet, if I thought she would cease to be a Oatholic, I would 
rather trust her to the charity of some asylum of our Church." 

" Do not fear," answers Sir Henry ; " I will not tamper with her 
faith. In all else she shall be my daughter, in that she shall be 
free." 

" Will you send her to a convent ? Will you promise P " 

"Yes." 

"And her nurse, faithful Norah, whose love for her is next to 
mine?" 



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Alice Treheme^ 657 

<< She shall always stay with us ; she shaU have charge of the 
chfld.'» 

Sir Henry's Toioe is trembling; ^e is thinking that there is 
no love like that between brother and sister, that love which, 
beginning in a cradle, ends only in the graye, and yet his only sister 
is dying in poverty, and he has done nothing to save her. He did not 
know, he did not think it was as bad as this, but he will make amends 
to her daughter. The dying woman seems to guess his thoughts ; 
the anxious look fades out of her face ; she places her child's hand 
within her brother's, and smiles on them both. 

Then come the years of convent life, the gentle nuns, the merry 
school friends, the sweet monotony of work and play and prayer, 
and over all hangs that peaceful charm which convent girls never 
forget. 

Now it is the London season ; Alice is at her first ball, and by her 
side stands Mr. Qordon, handsome and devoted. And now again it 
is morning at Hampton Court, and he is speaking of his love. '* You 
shall be my queen,'* he says, " my queen for ever, only give up that 
silly superstition, or at least conform exteriorly to the rites of my 
church. Conviction will come later; it cannot fail." 



n. 

WxBKs passed, but Mr. Oordon came no more to the house at 
Kensington Gh>re. Lady Walston, who had never held an opinion in 
her life, looked with half- admiring eyes at the young rebel ; but Sir 
Henry was by turns stem and irritable — for he had been thwarted in 
the dearest hope of his life. Hitherto he had looked on Alice's 
Catholicity as a pretty superstition to be smiled at and tolerated. 
What mattered it to him that she stole out with old Norah to ecurly 
Mass, since her bright face was always ready to welcome him at the 
breakfast-table P As he often remarked to his wife, their little Popish 
niece was sweeter and more dutiful than any other girl they knew. 
But now it was quite different ; for Mr. Oordon refused to many a 
Catholic, and that Alice should be his wife had been Sir Henxy's dream 
for years. To Mr. Oordon, who was his cousin, the baronetqr ctnd 
estate would pass at his death, and he had always planned that Alice 
should then reign at the old house in Shropshire. But now that all his 
wishes seemed about to be realised, now that love itself was playing 
into his hands, was it to be borne that a silly question of theology 
should spoil everything P Of course, Gbrdon was as foolish, and more 
exacting than Alice ; but, then, Gbrdon was a self-willed man, with 
whom it was useless to contend — a Scotchman, with all a Scotchman's 
prejudices — whereas his niece was a child, a mere baby. It was thus 

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658 Alice Treheme^ 

that Sir Heniy oommuned with himself, as he walked up and down 
among the chairs and ottomans, while Alice sat bj the window and 
watched the fading of the summer twilight. 

It was the feast of Saint Alojsius, and the poor girl was thinking, 
with vague enyy, of the boy saint, and of that peaceful Boman 
novitiate from which the world seems so entirely shut out, and where 
one fancies that even temptation must be silent, hushed by the holy 
calnu Suddenly she was startled out of her reverie by seeing that her 
unde had stopped in his walk, and was standing before her. 

" No one," he said, abruptly, '' no one can say that I have not 
fulfilled my promise to your poor mother. You have had exactly the 
training that Catholic parents would have given you; but you are now 
nineteen, my task is over, and it is time you took on yourself the 
responsibility of a choice. It has pleased you to refuse Mr. Gordon, 
though my heart was set on the marriage But it is not of that I wish 
to speak this evening ; — ^it is of your father, whose reckless folly ." 

He was interrupted by Lady Walston's gentle voice. '* My dear,'' 
she said, reprovingly, and Sir Henry grew red, coughed, and then 
continued more calmly : 

''Your father, Mr. Treheme, who knew nothing of business, 
became the dupe of swindlers, who involved him in their affairs, and 
then fled the country, leaving him responsible. The debts amounted 
to ten thousand pounds, and the angry creditors threw him into prison. 
You have often questioned me regarding your father, and you have 
been told that he was away, but that some day, perhaps, he would 
return. Yet all this time he has been living near you — in London — 
in the Fleet Prison." 

*' In prison ! " repeated poor Alice ; — " in prison ! " and with bitter 
grief she added : '' He has but me in the world, and I have not been 
allowed to see him." 

" It was your father's desire," continued Sir Heniy, " that yon 
should know nothing of his fate. You were so young when it all 
happened that he thought you would forget him, and he did not wish 
to embitter your life by the knowledge of his misery ; but he has had 
news of you constantly ; and now, if you will, it is in your power, not 
only to see him, but to make him a free man. Ten thousand pounds 
is a large sum, and I have been years saving it for your dowry ; but 
(Gordon is rich, and willing to give up the money. Only conform to our 
wishes, and you yourself shall fetch your father from prison: say, 
my child, shall it be so ?" asked Sir Henry, looking eagerly at his 
niece ; for it had cost him many a struggle with his prudence and his 
conscience to resolve on such a bribe, and now he was all anxiety for 
the result. 

*< Let me go to my father to-morrow, to-morrow morning early," 
said Alice, between her tears. 

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Alice Treheme. 659 

' ^* That*a my own sensible girl/' exclaimed Sir Henry, who took 
her words for consent, and, with a parting kiss, left her to the tender 
ministrations of her aunt. 



III. 

By nine o'clock Alice was driving through the city streets, with her 
uncle and Norah. " I think we will get out and walk,'* remarked Sir 
Heniy, as they approached the Fleet prison ; and when the gloomy 
building was in sight he stopped and hesitated. Perhaps it was only 
a man's inherent dislike to a scene, perhaps some other motive, that 
made him say : " You will naturally like to see your father alone ; I'll 
join you in an hour," and he wandered away into the gloomy streets, 
while Alice and Norah entered the prison together. The man who 
received them forbore to tell the trembling girl to lift her veil, and 
ushered them, with more respect than usual, into Mr. Treherne's room. 
•< This is it, Miss,'* he said, and closed the door behind him, leaving 
Alice standing in utter bewilderment. She looked in vain for the 
father whose loved face still dwelt in her memory ; she only saw an 
old man, who sat propped up by pillows ; an old man whose pale face 
was framed by long, white hair. 

He, too, was confused for a moment ; but, seeing Norah, the truth 
flashed on him, and, stretching forth his trembling hands, he cried: 
" My child ! my darling ! " 

In an instant Alice was in his arms, and then they stood gazing at 
each other, with hearts too full for words. How pale he was — ^how 
thin his hands — ^how faded the light of his eyes ! And yet, what peace 
shone through all the sufPering in his face ! A nd the room ! — how 
shabby and comfortless it looked — ^how different to her uncle's house ; — 
but everywhere in it she saw tokens of her father's love. Near the 
hearth was the first kettleholder she had made for her nurse ; in the 
place of honour, on the ricketty table, lay one of those bead mats of 
which school girls are so fond ; several of her drawings hung where 
the light could best fall upon them, and, near the bed, there was a 
long row of her portraits: a little black profile, a rough sketch made 
by some convent Baphael, several faded daguerreotypes, and the 
photograph taken only a few weeks ago. Alice, as she looked at them, 
understood why her nurse was always so eager to secure such things, 
and who the friend was to whom the faithful creature so often paid 
mysterious visits. 

And now there came a knock at the door, and the doctor entered. 
He was a rough, good-natured man, the self -constituted physician of 
his fellow-prisoners, and their most patient nurse ; but neither Alice's 
beauty, nor her gentle bearing, could win one kindly glance from him ; 

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66o Alice Treheme. 

for it Itad been whispered in the prison* that Mr. Treheme had a 
daughter rich and happy, and thisi no doubt, was the heartless gizL 

" Is my father better P'' asked Alice, as the doctor was leaving the 
room. 

'' No," answered he, grufBy ; '' nor likely to be in such a plaoe as 
this." 

'' Can nothing be done to cure him ? What is he suffering from?" 

''What is he suffering from?" repeated the doctor, angrily, "he 
is suffering from want of air, and sunshine, and happiness. I think, 
young lady, that M you were shut up here for six months you would 
know what that means ;*' and he went away, slamming the door and 
muttering to himself. 

" Oh, my father, you shall not die !*' cried Alice, throwing herself at 
Mr. Treheme's feet. " I can saye you — ^I will save you 1" and, in 
broken words, she told him of Mr. (Gordon's love, and of her undoes 
offer. 

Her father heard her in silence, and then said, very earnestly : 
" Can you think that I would accept liberty on such terms? that I 
would buy a few years of freedom with your eternal slavery? My 
child, listen to me, and when you are tempted remember my words. 
If, from any motive, you forsook your faith, I would never see you, 
never speak to you again ; and when I died you would know that you 
had broken your father's heart But I have no such fear," he added, 
laying his hand tenderly on her bowed head; " my child will fight the 
good fight, and win the victory." 

While he was still speaking Sir Henry entered the room. He came 
forward, with beaming face, expecting the warmest welcome, but Mr. 
Treheme waved back his proffered hand. " Is it thus," he said, 
sternly, '' that you keep your promise to your dead sister ? Is it thus 
that you tempt a young girl to forswear her faith ? Is it thus that 

," and then suddenly the angry light faded out of the sick man's 

eyes, he fell back on his pillows, and when they gathered round him 
they found he had fainted. 

For a week Mr. Treheme wavered between life and death, and 
then slowly he began to recover. Alice never left him, and during 
those long watches, the peace of his ^soul seemed by degrees to steal 
into hers. She could be content, she thought, to go on for ever, tend- 
ing her father, and learning from him the sweet wisdom of resignation. 
But 2ii£r. Treheme himself soon destroyed this hope. Sir Henry had 
not come again to the prison, but he constantly sent to inquire after 
his brother-in-law, and to ask when Alice would return. 

*' Tell Sir Henry that his niece will go home to-morrow/* said 
Mr. Treheme to the messenger, when one day he came as usual, 
and it was in vain that Alice pleaded to stay. " My darling," her 
Sther answered, " it is impossible that you should go on living here. 



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Alie^ Treheme. 66i 

My sweet Alice dwell in a prison ! No, no, it caanot be; but if yoa 
wiUi jroa shall come and see me daily. I shall fancy that you bring 
the sunshine with you, and your yirit will be the event of my day." 

It was thus it came to pass that Alice each morning stood at the 
gate of the ''Meet," waitingforadmittance, and that every one within 
those gloomy walls learned to watch for her coming. " She is like the 
angel that was sent to break St. Peter's chains," said a poor artist, who 
had brought with him to his prison recollections of the glorious Yatican 
fresco, and though a fellow-prisoner sceptically remarked that gaolers 
were not to be done by angels nowadays, the children hadcaught up the 
name, and would whisper to each otJier that Saint Peter's angel was 
coming. Alice was so different from the woman to whom these poor 
little things were accustomed ; so unlike their care-worn and often 
slattemly mothers, that they would hover in the passages when she 
was expected, and I really think they cared more for her smiles than 
for the cakes with whidi nurse Norah's basket was always laden. 
Even the gaolers would brighten at her approach, and as for her father, 
he sat all day at his window, watching with wistful eyes for the 
first sight of his darling. She seemed, indeed, as he had said, to bring 
the sunshine with her, though at home she often felt sad and had 
trials enough. 

Sir Henry had dwelt on the thought of her marriage with Mr. 
Gordon till it had become a monomania, and in a hundred ways he 
showed his disappointment, though occasionally a word would betray 
that he still hoped to break his niece's resolution. ICr. Ctordon, too, 
had resumed his visits, and would plead his cause, sometimes with 
loving words, sometimes with arguments, sometimes with reproaches. 
Poor Alice bore it all with gentle patience, and if she grew paler and 
thinner, the change was so gradual that no one remarked it. 

At last there came a day on which she did not appear at the 
prison. Her little friends, the children, ran out into the cold wind in 
the hope of meeting her; the prisoners, lounging about in their 
sad, enforced idleness, discussed the reason of her absence, and her 
father often turned with a sigh from the window, and as often turned 
back with lingering hope. But he was never to see her again, for Alice 
lay motionless on her Httle bed, and the angel of death wrapped her, 
each moment more and more, in the shadow of his wings. 

It was Palm Sunday, and that morning, on her return from Mass, 
she felt a sudden dizziness, and with a faint cry for Norah, she had 
lost consciousness. A blood-vessel had burst, and the great doctor 
whom they sunmioned in haste had shaken his head and gone away, 
blandl7 saying that he would return if it could afford Sir Henry any 
consolation. Then they knew that she must die, and no one offered 
any opposition when her faithful nurse brought a priest to administer 
the last holy rites of religion. 

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66^ The Late Dittm (ySrien. 

He, too, was gone now, and Sir Heniy and Lady Waktcm stood at 
the foot of the bed, watching, the dying girL She still wore the 
white dress she had put on that morning, but it was stained here and 
there with crimson spots of blood; her yellow hair had fallen back on 
her pillow, forming a kind of gloiy round her head, and by her side 
lay the pabn branch which she had brought from church. Sir Henry, 
looking at her, could not help thinking of a picture he had seen years 
ago at Florence, a picture of St. Agnes, Tii^;in and martyr; but in 
Alice's mind there was no thought of reproach; her last words had 
been words of love, and even now, when she could no longer speak, 
her eyes seemed to follow her undo with mute caresses. The end was 
drawing near. They stood aside, that Norah might hold the crudfix for 
the dying girl to kiss ; as her lips touched the sacred feet a faint 
colour came to her face, a sudden light to her eyes, her hand sought 
the palm branch, and with a last effort she held it towards Norah. 
*' For my father — heayen ! " she murmured, and fell back with a 
smile which death stamped for ever on her fiace. 



THE LATE DILLON O'BEIEN. 

'^T^BOITD philosophy" tells us of stars so remote from this little 
JT planet of ours that the rays of light which bear their image to 
us, though they trayel so many thousands of miles each minute, take 
hundreds of years to reach our eyes, so that those distant orbs might 
be extinguished for a hundred years and yet seem to us to be stiU 
shining on. We have been reminded of this statement of the astro- 
nomers during the last few months, as the monthly instalments of one 
of our serial tales followed in regular succession, though the hand of 
the writer was cold in death in distant Minnesota. 

We owe our introduction to the late lifr. Dillon O'Brien to Mr. 
John Sweetman, of Drumbaragh, county Meath, the public-spirited 
and benerolent gentleman who has expended a portion of the ample 
means entrusted to him by Providence on the promotion of Irish 
colonisation under advantageous conditions. As the subject of our 
notice was one of his chief helpers, it is proper to remark here that 
all concerned in the enterprise felt with Longfellow, that '' to stay at 
home is best," and that it is a sad pity when a homestead has to be 
broken up. Would that all could live and work and bring up their 
families and save their souls on the same spot as their f a&ers and 

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The Late Dillon O'Brien. (56 j. 

moiheis on the plains and hills of Ireland. But still "the emigration 
goes on, and it is eminently desirable that it should take place, if at 
all, with those aids and safeguards which, are best for the temporal 
and eternal welfare of the Irish exile. 

Dillon O'Brien was bom in June, 1818, at Kilmore, in the parish 
of Athleague, county Eoscommon, Through his mother he was 
related to the late Father Christopher Bellew,SJ., who was perhaps the 
only example in the Catholic Church of what is pretty common among 
Anglicans, the union of the two yery different dignities of priesthood 
and baronetcy. He was afterwards connected by marriage with 
another Irish litterateur, Miles Gerald Eeon.* 

In some notices of his death, published in American and home 
newspapers, the place of his education received a name which we 
forget, and which belongs to no college in these countries. But Hr. 
O'Brien, in a letter received from him last year, mentioned that he 
was educated at St. Stanislaus College, TuUamore, and that he had 
used in one of his Irish-American stories the name of one of his 
masters, Eather St. Leger, S.J. Like the owners of many large pro- 
perties in Ireland after the famine year, and especially in the west of. 
Ireland, Dillon O'Brien found himself in manhood in less flourishing 
circumstances than he had been bom to. In the year 1855 he took 
his family out to the United States, settling first at Fontiac, in Hi- 
ehigan, and then at Bayard, in Wisconsin, but finally, after two 
years' sojourn in Minneapolis, he made his home at St. Paul, Minne- 
sota, in 1865. Many touching testimonies are borne to his great 
worth and goodness in all the private relations of life. As a public 
man, he was an earnest Irish Catholic, devoted to every enterprise 
which he thought capable of elevating his race and the sharers of his- 
faith. He was, by word and example, a lay apostle of the cause of 
total abstinence, and he was, as we have said, associated with Bishop 
Ireland in organising a system of Catholic colonization. Our poor 
Irish exiles (who with us are emigrants, but over there are immi- 
grants) are too often lost by being absorbed in the residuimi of the 
large seaboard cities like New York. The German element has an 
influence in the United States population far beyond its numerical 
proportion, because German societies and organisations convey the 
new comers to the far West, and enable them to get a hold on the 
land. Mr. Dillon O'Brien did most effective service in applying the 

* ThiB name might find a place in the next edition of Mr. Alfred Webh's excel- 
lent " Compendium of Iruh Biography." Thirty yeart ago Mr. Keen was editor of 
"Dolman's Magazine "—one of the best attempts at a literary periodical for English 
Catholics -and he published about that time a Life of the Boman patrician, St. Alexis. 
As the rest of his life was spent in colonial appointments, his writings were published 
chiefly in New York, one of the most important being a « Christian Classic Romance " 
called *' Dion and the Sibyls." 



Vol. X.. No. 112. ^ ^ ^ ^ 

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664 The Late Dillon O'Brien. 

same policy to the yearly influx of the Celtic race. Mr. W. J. Onahan 
of Ghicago is the best authority on this subject, and he has published 
his emphatic testimony to ''tiie vast labour and neyer-tiring zeal, 
combined with intelligent and well-directed purpose, which he gave to 
this work in all the multiplied and frequent vexations which attend 
it. It was a work which required talent, enthusiasm, patience. He 
gave it these, and more.*' 

The writings of 2ii£r. Dillon O'Brien with which we are acquainted 
are '< Widow MelYille's Lodging-house'' and ''Dead Broke," with 
which our readers are also acquainted, and two or three novels of Irish- 
American life. In a letter, dated November 8th, 1881, he said in 
reply to some enquiries about what he had written in addition to 
the above mentioned tales : '' I am grateful for the interest you 
take m my poor literary efforts. I have written some verses and a 
good many pieces for the newspapers, but never kept a copy of manu- 
script or paper ; however, I believe that the well-deserved destiny of 
my poetiy pointed to the greengrocers." 

On Sunday, Februaiy 12, 1882, Mr. O'Brien, before attending Mass 
in the cathedral, called on the Bishop of St. ^Paul's, Dr. Ireland, 
whose intimate friend he was and trusted f eUow-Iabourer. During 
their conversation the bishop noticed him growing pale, and in Ave 
minutes he was dead. But a '' sudden and unprovided death " is the 
evil we pray against, and this death was not unprovided, but prepared 
for in the best way by a life of virtue and good works, the assiduous 
frequentation of Uie sacraments, and the constant practice of all the 
duties of religion. Bishop Ireland, in his funeral sermon, paid the 
highest tribute to his departed friend, whom he called '^ a typical 
Catholic layman — an Irishman, to whom his countiymen could look up 
with pride, and a warm friend and benefactor from whom they could 
expect any service. With the record of his Christian life we remit him 
into the hands of his Maker and his Judge, confident (said the venerable 
prelate) that a rich reward awaits him, and finding in this thought 
full consolation for his departure from us." 



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( 665 ) 

OUR PILGEIMAGE TO LISD00ir7ABNA. 
PabtI. 

'' T7IT7LL many a flower is bom to blush unseen/' quoth the poet ; 
J. and such an assertion was safe to make in the stay-at-home 
days of the gentle elegiast. As a rule we do not prize that which is 
within our reach; hence in those bygone times pale primrose, and 
graceful hyacinth, briar rose and delicate fern, with many another 
Bweet wild blossom, bloomed and faded in sequestered spots, untroubled 
by man's notice. Thus, too, it fared with the flora of the distant lands 
which then loomed but faint and shadow-like upon the horizon of the 
insular mind. Now, however, all that is changed ; the shadowy lands 
have taken substance, and the world of to-day, governed by Science, 
Pleasure, and Commerce, holds few sequestered spots. Under the 
above restless triumvirate, our sphere, like the ant-hill, has been in- 
tersected by continuous highways, leading through the mountain 
masses, across the mountain peaks, under the waters, over the waters, 
penetrating to every quarter to the 'globe, and bearing thither man 
eager to see end hear, and touch and taste, of aught that is novel in 
his surroundings. 

Therefore, pondering upon the great development of man's inquisi- 
tiveness and his proportionately increased f adlities of locomotion, I 
am forced to quarrel with the poet's dictum. Where, nowadays, is 
there a floral haunt sacred from man's intrusion ? Invading Alpine 
solitudes, he will pluck the Vagrant lilies [of the valley that duster 
about the chestnut boles upon the Colma. Even the majestic flower 
which loves to be alone, pluming the granite rocks of Monte Bosa, is 
not, upon such dizzy heights,' beyond the reach of his ambition. Turn- 
ing from Europe to the dark Continent, see thrust aside in our day the 
broad-leaved, shell-shaped lily, that for centuries stood sentinel by the 
waters of Nyanza, shading the cradle of the Nile, and successfully 
guarding the secret of its birth. Away to the New World, and there 
we And that the virgin forests of America have not been dense 
enough to exclude, neither have her vast prairies been trackless 
enough to deter the adventurous explorer. Northward in the regions 
of perpetual snow — where the birds build their nests on cold oli£^ and 
frozen sand, where even the hardy Samoyeds never come — ^there may, 
you think, be ice-plants, and mosses, and lichens, of which the rein- 
deer only knows. But no : here too the inquiring mind has been, and 
{he mosses and lichens of those arctic wilds have a place in botanical 
annal, since brave Nordenskiold with his good ship, the Vega, 
made the voyage between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through tiie 
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666 Our Pilgrimage to Ltsdoonvarna. 

East, west, north, or soath, why, it seems to me, that owing to the 
wandering disposition of mankind, there is no place on earth where a 
poor flower of the present can hide its head, except, perhaps, Central 
Australia. After a little while, too, the secret which cost poor Burke 
his life will be wrung from this inhospitable tract, and twenty years 
hence the fortunate explorer of the mysterious region may come (like 
the Australians whom I observed yesterday) all the way from tiie 
Antipodes, to pluck the Ballynalacken ferns, and recount his strange 
adventures, whilst he recruits his shattered health here at Lisdoonvama. 
That brings me back to the very point from which I started. It 
was in the remote comer of the world represented by the above 
musical polysyllable that, standing at my window yesterday, I ob- 
served some Australian visitors pass by, canying flowers of native 
growth and shyest habits in their hands. 

" Full many a flower is born to blush onaeen,** 
I exclaimed ironically. Not so many in this nineteenth century ; and 
thereupon I rambled otf in a train of thought which, reduced here to 
writing, forms a veiy discursive introduction, which, if it lacks point, 
may serve a purpose, illustrating for the reader the tedious and uphill 
road one has to travel, in coming from Ennis, the chief town of Clare, 
to this little village upon the western coast of the most western 
county in Ireland. 

About fifty years ago the powerful sulphur spring at Lisdoon- 
vama was accidentally discovered. Science heiml, and hastened 
hither to investigate the treasures of the mountain district in the 
interest of suffering humanity. Pleasure, curious to see, came quickly 
tripping upon the heels of her graver sister, and Business, advancing 
steadily in the wake of both, built up for the growing wants of their 
followers good hotels, commodious lodges, and shops fully stocked 
with their respective wares. All this you may prove for yourself if, 
eschemng Continental spas, you give a trial next summer to our Irish 
Baden. 

During the season there are several two-horse rehicles plying 
daily between Ennis and Lisdoonvama, and it was in one of Uiese 
that I made the journey lately. The day, cold and threatening in its 
earlier hours, grew fine towards noon — too fine we thought, as, previous 
to starting, the car in which we had taken our seats was drawn up at 
the little office in a narrow street, most aptly termed Jail-street, and 
the sun poured down on our devoted heads, covered, but not shaded, 
by dose toques. Of course our sun-hats were buried away, deep down 
'* full fathoms five," in the pile of luggage. 

At length the last cord was fastened upon this same luggage pile, 
the last strap was buckled on the harness, the gentleman for whom we 
had waited arrived in becoming haste, yet, with his foot upon the step, 
had still another word to say to a friend before finally olambedng into 

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Our Pilgrimage to Lisdoonvarna. tb^j 

the seat reserved for him upon the box. The driver took his place, 
shook the reins, cracked his whip, and away we went; through 
Bindon-street, over the Victoria Bridge, and so at a pleasant ^uick 
pace, till in due time we reached Corofin. This village or townlet (to 
coin a word and effect a compromise), is situated on the top of a hill, 
and gave me the idea of thorough bleakness. A line of young trees 
set along the street rather confirmed than removed this impression. 
The plantation looked so unhealthy, that, as a fellow-traveller 
remarked, it must be long years before it affords an umbrageous 
retreat to the Corofin maidens. But although Corofin is in itself so 
"bleak, it boasts near neighbourhood to the picturesque lake and 
beautifully wooded district of Inchiquin, from the barony of which the 
lords of that ilk take their prettily sounding title. 

Betweeen Corofin and the little village of Elilf enora, the road leads 
through the dismantled piers of seven gateways to the ruined castle of 
lim^ueh. Ihis castle is a structure of the Elizabethan period, and 
we are told how it was held in that bygone time by Maura Bhua, a 
woman dead to every gentle feeling of her sex. Local'traditions have 
much to say of cruel deeds perpetrated here, and of wicked horsemen 
riding forth to work their wicked lady's will ; but to-day the only 
horses led imder the massive archway are those meant to replace our 
jaded team which goes wearily into tiie shelter of the crumbling walls, 
as we resume our journey, which is soon to come to its dose. We 
have been mounting upwards for three hours, to find ourselves at the 
end of that time surrounded by steep hills, that dip suddenly into the 
deeper ravines through which the mountain streams are rushing 
Crossing an ivy-mantled bridge that spans such a stream at an angle 
of the road, we come upon our first view of the white walls of Lisdoon- 
vama, and at the same time our path is crossed by '' smartly got-up " 
children, dandified men, and fashionably dressed women — flotsam and 
jetsam which indicates that civilisation is at hand, rising from the midst 
of a flat table-land of heath-clad, boggy country. The promenaders 
had come to meet the cars, and for alike purpose the population seemed 
to have GoUecieienmasse at the entrance to the village. Still, as we drove 
up to the door of " The Royal," we were confronted by another group 
of sjght-seers : these were the hotel guests, anxious to note the new 
arrivals and learn whether Mr. Baly had brought any addition to their 
party. 

You are fortunate if upon your entrance to Lisdoonvama Slieve 
Eilva should lift its cap ; and most fortunate, indeed, may you con- 
sider yourself if this high, bold headland, jutting out into the sea, 
remains tmcovered during the whole time of your stay ; for then, as 
*weather-prophets tell, the sun will shine upon your rambles. But 
woe to the unlucky wight who, entering Lisdoonvama from the east, 
is confronted by tiie unpropitious augury of a mist-covered, black 

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668 Our Pilgrimage to Lisdoonvarna. 

capped mountain. The day of Ms arrival is the date of his committal 
to a dreaiy prison. And if when the sky clears up ever so little, 
arrayed in '' sempre secco " and thick boots, you should attempt a rush 
to one or other of the wells, beware of the treacherous Lisdoonvama 
mud — a greasy composite stuff in its liquid state, as slippery as glass, 
although hardening instantaneously under the influence of the sun. 

The gloriotis sun ! Even as upon his first appearance here the 
muddy roads are dried up, and straightway present a firm macadamised 
surface, so in like manner does his coming stimulate the quiescent 
human life at Lisdoonvarna into instant action. A moment since and 
the scene was desolate ; now it is animated enough. Cars are hur- 
rying to and fro, taking up the fares secured by previous appointment, 
whilst the less fortunate jarveys range their vehicles in line at the 
door of '^ The Boyal" and improve the shining hour in chafifing one 
another, or in expatiating, to whoso will listen, upon the merits of 
their respective steeds. Marketwomen proceed to remove the straw or 
sacking which had sheltered their wares, babbling all the time in the 
sweet, quaint Irish tongue. Perhaps the overstrained medium of a 
marketwoman's tongue but iU conveys the sweetness of any language. 
Then listen and be convinced of the beauty of ours, as it falls in 
liquid tones from the lips of that dark-eyed peasant girl, who is just 
leaving the market-place, driving before her an ass with panniers. 
She had come, as women of her class come every day, to barter with 
the " hucksters" the vegetable produce of her garden " patch," which 
lies a mile^or two away, just down upon the sparkling sea. 

Groups of countrypeople are wending their way to the sulphur- 
well for a mid-day draught of the cool bright water ; and as it is time 
that we presented our credentials to Biddy, let us join the crowd. See 
that stalwart Tipperary man, who leans lightly upon his folded um- 
brella (of the Sarah Oamp pattern). You will hear him tell his com- 
panions how he came to Lisdoonvarna crippled with rheimiatism, but 
how that now, owing (under Providence) to the water, he can walk 
without crutch or stick ; and then, to prove his words, the Sarah Gamp 
is flourished aloft, shillelagh-fashion, till, shillelagh-like, it comes into 
dangerous proximity with a neighbour's head. 

There is no halfway-house at Lisdoonvarna ; every building seems 
to be upon the top or at the bottom of a hilL This thought struck 
me as I stood looking, for the first time, at Mr. Westropp's pretty villa 
upon the height, and observed nestling at the foot of the same emi- 
nence the structure raised over the sulphur spring and the baths con- 
nected with this latter. Time was, and that recently enough, when 
this sulphur well was a well, pw et simple, and Biddy, as regardless 
of sun or rain as any nymph or naiad, sat out the season by its aide^ 
and dispensed its waters with a liberal hand and a ready tongue to 
all comers. Now the water is raised by a pump ; Biddy serves her 



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Our Pilgrimage to Lisdaonvarna. 669 

customers across a counter, and over her there is a sheltering r6of , 
which, no doubt, conduces much to the comfort of her declining years. 
But whilst these modem contrivances have not impaired the qua- 
lity of the waters, they must have detrimentally affected the native 
humour of the presiding genius. Biddy's keen observations and 
witty answers no longer delight an appreciative audience ; her smart 
sayings are no longer retailed at the dinner-table or sociable '' tea," 
and to me all that appeared ''racy of the soil" in this homely-featured 
countrywoman was a kindly manner, with a countenance in which 
fihrewdness was strongly blended with good humour. 

Having taken your first draught from her shapely brown hand, 
and returned the glass with a grimace, you may loiter by the river, 
alternately watching its placid flow and the ebb and flow of visitors 
to the well, or mounting the steep pathway drop a coin into the hand 
of the blind fiddler at the gate, and with footsteps timed to the lively 
measure of Brian Boru's March, venture upon the ascent of still 
another hill to the left, until, coming opposite the Atlantic Hotel, you 
turn and have a dear, wide view of the Atlantic Ocean in the 
distance. 

If you wish to approach more closely to the sea, and are an active 
pedestrian, there are several pleasant walks — that to Ballynalacken, 
for instance, affords good exercise — and you will return from your 
ramble with an appetite sharpened to the keenest edge by Lisdoon- 
vama air. Blending as it does the sea and mountain breeze, many 
ascribe the health-giving properties of Lisdoonvama more to its 
bracing atmosphere than to the mineral springs in which it is so 
rich. 

Of these, together with the sulphur spring before mentioned, 
there is one very strongly impregnated with iron, a copperas well, and 
the magnesia or milder chalybeate. This last is said to make excel- 
lent tea, and to extract the fullest flavour from the fragrant leaf, thus 
affording an example of the nice adjustment and compensatiag nature 
of the hygienic law which forbids the use of spirituous liquors to 
those who would profit by imbibing the mineral essence. Assuming 
that this law is strictly observed by visitors, the easy lines upon 
which society at Lisdoonvama is constituted, and its generally jovial 
and convivial disposition speak volumes for the social qualities of 
" the cup that cheers." 

The centres of fun are the hotels, to which outsiders may easily 
obtain the entr^e^ an introduction by a mutual friend ensuring yon a 
constant welcome from the host of one or other. Where all extend 
such hospitality, comparisons would be invidious: but gratitude 
obliges me to particularise the circle of " The Boyal," as it was the 
one in whose amusements I most largely shared. 

There the autumn evenings passed pleasantly, and if the song was 

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6 ^o Borrmoed Plumes. 

abnrptlj bushed, or the dancing brought to a close at the oompara- 
tirely early hour of 1 1 p.m., ^ho could murmur at the enforcement of 
a rule which consulted for the quiet necessary to the invalided guests ? 
Certainly not those other guests, strong and healthy, who before 
leaving the hotel had decided with the friendly inmates upon some 
plan of amusement for the morrow — a pic-nic party at a distance, or a 
walk it might be to some point of interest nearer home : perhaps a 
fern-gathering expedition to Ballynalacken, whither we must go next 
month to see these pretty plants at hme^ and to pluck one which may 
serve us as a floral memento of Lisdoonvama. 

M. E. C. 



BOREOWED PLUMES. 
HI. 



The feelings which are supposed to animate the maternal bosom of a 
ben that has reared up a brood of orphan du(^dings when, for the first 
time, to her dire dismay, she sees her web-footed foster-children take 
to the water, may be used as a term of comparison for the feelings of 
iJie editor of an humble magazine when contributors, who have 
graduated in his pages, launch out on the sea of public literature, and 
the London magazines. This Temark is not suggested by such 
prominent names as Bichard Dowling, or Oscar Wilde. The author of 
the " Mysteiy of iKillard " had, indeed, distinguished himself before 
the Irish MoirraxT was bom, by those quaint essays which afterwards 
became the book, '' On Babies and Ladders ; " but we are not aware 
that any fiction from his most ingenious pen preceded the exquisite 
idyllic story of •'Mary of Liisard," in our second volume, in 1874. 
Before aestheticism was invented; before ''Patience" was sung, or 
** The Colonel ** played ; or ** that greenery-yallery, Grosvenor Gallery, 
ioot-in-l^e-grave yeung man," had yet been heard ol, Mr. Oscar Wilde 
had contributed many poems to our magazine, his first appearance, we 
bdieve, in print We refer, at present, neither to tiiese nor to Miss 
Attie O'Brien, who, after enlivening our sixth volume with short 
Tories like *^ One Summer by the Sea,** was invited to sup^y a long 
serial story, and, indeed, more than one, to a weekly journal of vast 
firculation, and whose name we perceived lately in the bill of fare 
served up by Tinslej/'s Ma^aune. The plumes which we are going to 
borrow tare verses published elsewhere by the aufliw t/t '* ISie Legend 

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Borrowed Plumes. <>^ i 

of the Painted Windows,'* at page 360 of our eighth volumey and of 
many excellent poems since. The following, in a recent number of 
the Graphic, \B signed ''Katharine Tynan," and is called ''At Set 
of Sun":— 

Within the church long shadows on the wall 

Come, and are gone ; the hours hare lingering feet ; 
And the great organ's pulses rise and fall, 

Waking to life in rapturous mxxtAC sweet, 
Weaving a poem erer mystical. 

Without, in a high westward world of gold, 
Ab loth to leaye, the sun goes tenderly ; 

The trailing glories of hia Testure's fold, 
Amber, and rose, and all fair hues that be, 
Float, all transfigured, in a sapphire sea. 

In the low hedge the brown birds chirp and sing, 
And the wan wild rose opes its jewelled cup 

Lighting the brier ; the elder blooms are white ; 
Where late the hawthorn stars were blossoming, 

Now woodbine doth its sweet breath render up, 
And the rich air grows languorous with delight. 

I know a lady who at sunset fire — 

white, unsoildd doTe ! — comes here to prayer ; 
So pure she is, the seraphs scarce were higher ; 
So sweet the summer wind in warm desire 

With fair cool fingers ruffles her soft hair ; 
So tender, flowers are joyful *neath her tread ; 

The loTing dumb things gather in her way, 
The singing birds from her white hands are fed. 

Drop down, O Music, into silence gray ! ^ 

She comes, my loye, my lore ; oh, fairer than the day! 

She kneels ; the light from the rose-window rolled 
Streams o'er her burnished hair and fair grand brows, 

Staining her white robe with auroral dyes. 

Now could I fall and kiss her garment's fold, 
Aod tell her all my lore and all my tows, — 

Ah ! the sweet wonder in her lorely eyes. 

The following poem would, we think, be improved, if Miss Tynan 
had got rid of the solitary break in the scheme of versification which 
makes all the odd lines end with dissyllabic rhymes. Is not the ear 
offended at finding the accent laid on the last syllable of the odd lines 
in the fourth quatrain, and only there ? This "Bestogam" of the 
Irish language was written at the request of the Secretazy of the 
Gaelic Union. 

O sonotrfnl, fair land ! shall we not lore thee, 
Whom thou hast cradled on thy bounteous bveast? 

Though all nnstarred and dark the clouds above thee, 
GRiyohildmi shall arise and call thee Uest. ^ . 

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6j2 Borrowed Plumes. 

Nerer our lipt can name thee, Mother, ooldlj. 
Nor our ears hear thy sweet, sad name unmoyed. 

And if from deeper pam our arms might fold thee, 
Were it not well with us, O best beloved ! 

Yet when we hymn thj praise, what words come thronging ? 

Not the sweet cadences thy lips hare taught ; 
Accents are these to alien lands belonging, 

Gifts from another shrine thine own hare brought. 
For ah 1 our memory, in the darkened years 

Of thy long pain, hath waxen dim and faint^ 
And we^e forgot, for weariness and tears, 

Our grand old tongue of poet and of saint. 

liost like a little child with meek surrender, 

Learning its lesson at the mother's knees, 
Come we to hear our own tongue, soft and tender, 

As wordless bird-songs in unnumbered trees. 
And now it shall not die ; through all the ages 

Thy sons shall hold it still, for love of thee. 
This strong sweet tongue of warriors and sages. 

Who serred thee much, yet loved not more than we. 

When the news oame, " Balder the Beautiful is dead !" many Iiiah 
hearts felt disappointed that the prayers they had so long offered up 
for Longfellow had not been crowned with outward success. Th^ 
had hoped and prayed that one of the truest, sweetest, and purest 
poets of any age or country would find his way at last into the Church 
whose creed and ritual had ,been the best inspiration of the genius 
to which the world owes for ever Elsie and Evangeline. But such 
graces do not follow natural laws; ''the spirit bloweth where it 
listeth." Christopher Milton had not the genius of his blind brother 
John, but he '' regained the paradise" of the true faith. Would that 
the grace which made Adela Longfellow a Catholic a few years ago, 
had been also conferred on her amiable and illustrious undo, Henry 
Wadsworth Longfellow ! 

The following elegy by our young poetess appeared in Tomg Lrt^ 
land soon after the death of Longfellow, March 24th, 1882. 

God gaye this man a priceless gift of song. 

And sent him forth into the worldly mart, 
To bear his message to the hurrying throng. 

And wake his image in each sleeping heart. 
And as they heard, fair bloomed the icy ways, 

Strife changed to lore, and faith no more was dim ; 
Stainless he bore his gift through many days. 

And now Qod calls his singer back to Him. 

When autnmn fields were bare and woods were gold. 

This poet's Ufe was waning with the year, 
Tetdid he hear glad Christmas tidings rolled 

From many a steeple, o'er the snow-fields drear. 

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A Magazine for Children. 673 

Time passed, and lo \ in later dajs of Kareb, 

When orchard boaghe break into roseate foam, 
And green in leaf are oak and silyer larch, 

He heard a Toice that called the exile home. 

Nor shall we weep» since our exceeding loss 

Is gain to him who passed beyond the dawn 
With gentle hands dose dinging to the cross, 

And loTing trust in Him who died thereon. 
With Lenten lilies be his dead hands crowned, 

For he hath joined the ererlasting choir ; 
Higher and sweeter his loyed Toioe shall sound 

Where flame-winged seraphs chant with strong desire. 



A MAGAZINE FOE CHILDHEN. 

Thbbe are three periodical publioations in whose proBperity our 
readers ought, we think, to be specially interested. The first of these 
is intended only for a particular class of our readers. Our list of 
subscribers has always from the first contained the names of a very 
large number of priests in Ireland and other countries, many of whom 
have continued their patronage for the sake of the cause of CathoHc 
literature in general, without drawing much personal advantage from 
our monthly supply of prose and verse. These are, we think, called 
upon to support another literary journal, which (unlike our lighter 
pages) is specially adapted for their use. The current series of Th$ IrUih 
.Eeelestastical JRecard-^whick might, perhaps, be called the Maynooth 
Series of it, though priests from every part of Ireland contribute to its 
pages — is eminently worthy of the support of its own important 
public. Strange enough to say, it is the only periodical in the English 
language written by priests for priests. There are many such in 
France, Belgium, Germany, and Italy; but even the vast body of 
American clergy have no such organ of their own, and we are sure they 
will welcome The Irish JSceksiastical JReeord as at present conducted, 
according as it becomes known to them. 

The second periodical which appeals (not in vain) to the kind interest 
of our readers is their own magazine, Thx I&ish Mokthly. JErubesco 
referetu — and so pass on. 

The third magazLae, in which even our gravest readers should take 
an interest for the sake of their little friends, is the one which corres- 
ponds with the title of this paper. We fear that many who ought to 

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674 -^ Magazine for Children. 

know better will learn now, for tlie first time, that for three years 
past some zealous friends of the rising generation of the Irish Church 
have published month by month, through the firm of Duffy & Sons of 
Wellington-quay, Dublin, ''The Catholic Children's Magazine: an 
Illustrated Journal of Instructive Amusement for our Little Ones/ 
There is its title in full, with the important announcement appended — 
" price one penny." 

We are free to confess, to use a stupid parliamentary phrase, that the 
marked improyement which has been made in this Iruh ChMretCt 
Maganine has taken us by surprise. The illustrations especially are 
growing better and better. The standing front page of each number 
is a very pretty picture, or group of pictures, very neatly printed. The 
picture of Howth Harbour must be taken, we fear, from an old block. 
There is no such array of sails in those waters nowadays. 

Let us turn oyer the pages of the September number of your own 
Magazine, dear Irish children. The first page we haye described 
already. The second strings together yery cordial praises of the 
Magazine from Irish, English, and American journals, and also from 
the superiors of sundry eonyents— at Cabra, liyerpool, EnniBCorthy, 
St. Helen's, and Thurles. For instance, the last of these '* begs to 
assure the Editor that she has done everything in her power to recom- 
mend the Magazine as eminently calculated to instruct and improve the 
minds of children." 

Next follow two chapters of a serial story, which seems to please its 
patrons, though it has not succeeded in catching our attention in spite 
of two or three chances afforded to it. The foundress of the Americui 
Sisters of Charity, Mrs. Seton, was a most excellent and saintly 
woman, yet hardly suited for a biographical paper in a " Children's 
Magazine." 

We suspect that the last pages of each issue of this Magazine are 
the first to be read. The youthful readers are, of course^ eager to see 
if they have actually appeared in print, and how many of their eola- 
tions of puzzles and pastimes are correct. 

But we must cease abruptly, and leave till next month what more 
is to be read about " The Catholic Children's Magazine.'' 



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( 675 ) 



FEAGMENT OF AN UNPUBLISHED AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

BT JAMES CLABE17GIE MANOAIT. 

[SiK Charles Gavan Duffy says in ** Young Ireland " that Clarence 
Hangan was " the man most essentially a poet of all the writers of 
The Nation — as truly bom to sing deathless songs as Keats or Shelley." 
Of this exquisite genius a curious relic has lately come into my hands. 
A kind friend showed me an old oblong book ruled for music, contain- 
ing two or three chapters of what^ proved to be a life of the poet 
Mangan written by himself. Between every pair of staves were two 
lines in the very beautiful penmanship which he had preserved from 
his dismal scrivener days. On the first page of the book was placed 
this note by Father Meehan. " This fragment was written at my in- 
stance by poor Mangan. While composing it, he lodged in Fishamble- 
street. The remnant of the biogp*aphy never came into my possession; 
and I fear the author either lost or destroyed it.— C. P. M., 8S. 
Michael and John's, June 2drd, 1849." As Mangan died three days 
before the date of this entry, probably Father Meehan made it just 
after he had followed the remains of his friend to that grave in Glas- 
nevin, which, though marked by a very simple headstone, is saved 
from being forgotten by a finger-post on the walk near it, with a hand 
pointing ** To the Grave of Clarence Mangan.^* Not far away lies the 
fresher grave of another true poet, Denis Florence Mac Carthy. 

Father Meehan, who knows not how the manuscript escaped from 
his keeping, has with his characteristic generosity placed it at our dis- 
posal. We trust it will be followed in our pages by some original 
particulars concerning this very gifted man, who is not to be judged 
by this fragmentary confession of one of his dark hours, which draws 
too dark a picture of himself and his father. A corrective for wrong 
impressions will be supplied hereafter. — Ed, I. MJ] 

CHAPTER I. 

*' A beary shadow lay 
On that boj'e spirit : he was not of bis fathers." — Mamnger. 

AT a very early period of my life I became impressed by the convic- 
tion that it is the imperative duty of every man who has deeply 
Binned and deeply suffered to place upon record some memorial of his 
wretched experiences for the benefit of his fellow-creatures, and by 
way of a beacon to them, to avoid, in their voyage of existence, the 
rocks and shoals upon which his own peace of soul has undergone 
Vol. X.. No. 113. NoTember. 1882. Digitized by 0?)Ogle 



, 676 Clarence Mangan^s Autobiography. 

sliipTvreck. This convictioii continually gained strength within me, 
until it assumed all the importance of a paramount idea in mj mind. 
It was in its nature, alas ! a sort of dark anticipatioD, a species of 
melancholy foreboding of the task which Providence and my own 
disastrous destiny would one day call upon myself to undertake. 

In my boyhood I was haunted by an indescribable feeling of 
something terrible. It was as though I stood in the viciniiy of some 
tremendous danger, to which my apprehensions could give neither 
form nor outline. What it was I knew not ; but it seemed to include 
many kinds of pain and bitterness — baffled hopes, and memories full 
of remorse. It rose on my imagination like one of those dreadful 
ideas which are said by some German writers of romance to infest the 
soul of a man apparently foredoomed to the commission of murder. 
I say apparently, for I may here, in the outset, state that I have no 
faith in die theory of predestination, and that I believe every individual 
to be the architect of his own happiness or misery ; but I did feel that a 
period would arrive when I should look back upon the past with horror, 
and should say to myself : '^ Now the great tree of my existence is blasted, 
and will never more put forth fruit or blossom." And it was (if I 
may so speak) one of the nightmare loads lying most heavily on my 
spirit, that I could not reconcile my feeling of impending calamity 
with the dictates of that Beason which told me that nothing can 
irreparably destroy a man except his proper criminality, and that the 
verdict pf Conscience on our own actions, if favourable, shoiild always 
be sufflcient to secure to us an amount of contentment beyond the 
power of Accident to affect. Like Bonnet, whose life was embittered 
by the strange notion that he saw an honest man continually robbing 
his house, I suffered as much from my inability to harmonise my 
thoughts and feelings as from the very evil itself that I dreaded. 
Such was my condition from my sixth to my sixteenth year. 

But let me not anticipate my mournful narrative. The few 
observations that I make in this preliminary chapter I throw out 
without order or forethought, and ^ey are not intended to appear as 
the commencement of a history. In hazarding them I perhaps rather 
seek to unburden my own heart than to enlist the sympathies of my 
readers. Those few, however, who will thoroughly understand me, 
need not be informed why I appear to philosophise before I begin to 
narrate. 

I give my Confessions to the world without disguise or palliation. 
From the first my nature was always averse, even almost to a fault; 
the second, if it be possible in my case, I resign to that eternity which 
is rapidly coming alike upon me, my friends, and my enemies. These 
latter I also have, and from my heart I say, " May QOD* bless them 

* Bfang&n throughout writes the name of God in capital leiten. 

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Clarence Mangaris Autobiography. 677 

here and hereafter!" Meantime they, as well as those excellent 
individuals whose kindness towards me during the period of my 
probation I have experienced to an extent scarcely credible, may in ' 
these pages read the simple and undecorated truth with regard to all 
that has so long appeared worst in my character and conduct. To all 
I owe a debt, and that debt I shall endeayour to repay to the 
uttermost. 

There have been some men who may be said to have published 
their autobiographies without directly revealing themselves in these, 
as there are others who have avowedly laid bare to the eyes of man- 
kind their own delinquencies without cloak or equivocation. Among 
the former we may class Godwin and Byroa ; the latter will compre- 
hend St. Augustine, Eousseau, Charles Lamb, and perhaps a few 
besides. It is neither my wish nor my ambition to take any one of 
these as my model in sentiment or expression. I cannot do so if I 
would, and if I could I know that I would not. My desire is to leave 
after me a work that may not merely inform but instruct — that may 
be adapted to all capacities and grades of intellect — and that, while it 
seeks to develope for the thinking the more hidden springs of human 
frailty, shall also operate simply in virtue of its statements as a 
warning to others, particularly to the uneducated votary of Yice. 
And let me not be esteemed presumptuous if I add that it will be one 
which, with GOD'S blessing, shall achieve both objects. 

Por myself, individually, I crave nothing. I have forfeited all 
claim upon human generosity. The kindness that during my life, 
and amid all my errors, I have endeavoured to exercise towards 
others will, doubtless, be denied to me ; but 1 complain not. May 
my unhappy memoirs serve in some degree to benefit my fellow- 
beings! May GOD'S justice be vindicated in me and them! May 
no human creature ever arise from their perusal without (if a good 
man) feeling his virtuous resolutions confirmed, and if a bad, without 
experiencing some portion of that salutary remorse which indicates 
the first dawning of reformation. These I would wish, and ambition 
— ^but no more than these. 



CHAPTER n. 

" These thiiigs are but the beginning of eorrown" — Jew/B Christ* 

I SHARB, with an illustrious townsman of my own,* the honour, or 
the disreputability, as it may be considered, of having been bom the 
son of a grocer. My father, however, unlike his, never exhibited any 
of the qualities of guardian towards his children. His temper was 
not merely quick and irascible, but it also embodied much of that 

* Moore. 



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678 Clarence MangatCs Autobiography. 

calm, concentrated spirit of Milesian fierceness, a picture of which I 
have endeavoured to paint in mj Italian story of '' Glasparo BandoUo."* 
His nature was truly noble : to quote a phrase of my friend O'Donoyan, 
'' He never knew what it was to r^se the countenance of living 
man;"t ^^^ ^^ neglecting his own interests — and not the most selfish 
misanthropes could accuse him of attending too closely to those— he 
unfortunately forgot the injuries that he inflicted upon the interests 
of others. He was of an ardent and forward-bounding disposition, 
and, though deeply religious by nature, he hated the restraints of 
social life, and seemed to think that all feelings with regard to family 
connexions, and the obligations imposed by them, were totally beneath 
his notice. Me, my two brothers, and my sister, he treated habitually 
as a himtsman would treat refractory hounds. It was his boast, 
uttered in pure glee of heart, that '' we would run into a mouse-hole " 
to shun him. While my mother lived, he made her miserable ; he led 
my only sister such a life that she was obliged to leave our house ; he 
kept up a succession of continual hostilities with my brothers ; and, if 
he spared me more than others, it was perhaps because I displayed 
a greater contempt of life and everything connected with it than he 
thought was shown by the other members of his family. If anyone 
can imagine such an idea as a human boa-constrictor, without his 
alimentive propensities, he will be able to form some notion of the 
character of my father. May GOD assoil his great and mistaken soul 
and grant him eternal peace and forgiveness ! But I have an inward 
feeling that to him I owe all my misfortunes. 

My father's grand worldly fault was improvidenee. To anyone 
who applied to him for money he uniformly gave double or treble the 
sum requested of him. He parted with his money — ^he gave away the 
best part of his worldly property — and in the end he even suffered 
his own judgment and disposition to become the spoil of strangers. 
In plainer words, he permitted cold-blooded and crafty men to per- 
suade him that he was wasting his energies by following the grocexy 
business, and that by re-commencing life as a vintner he would soon 
be able not only to retrieve all his losses but to realise an ample 
fortune. And thus it happened, reader, that I, James Clarence 
Mangan, came into the world surrounded, if I may so express myself, 
by an atmosphere of curses and intemperance, of cruelty, infidelity, 
and blasphemy, and of both secret and open hatred towards the moral 
government of GOD — such as few infants, on opening their eyes to 
the first light of day, had ever known before. 

From the fatal hour which saw my father enter upon his new 
business, the hand of a retributive Providence} was visibly manifested 

♦ See Dublin University Magasim, for December 1848. (No. cxcii). 

t '* Annals of the Four MMten," anno [date not given"], 

% Uj reader will pardon the frequent allusion to GOD and ProTidenoe which oocur 



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Clarence MangarCs Autobiography. 679 

in the change that ensued in his affairs. Year by year his property 
melted away. Debts accumulated on him, and his creditors, knowing 
the sort of man they had to deal with, always proved merciless. Step 
by step he sank, until, as he himself expressed it, only '' the desert of 
perdition *' lay before him. Disasters of all kinds thickened around 
him ; disappointment and calamity were sown broadcast in his path. 
Nothing that he undertook prospered. No man whom he trusted 
proved faithful to him. ** The stars in their courses fought against 
Sisera." And his family ? They were neglected — forgotten — left to 
themselves. For me, I sought refuge in books and solitude, and days 
would pass during which my father seemed neither to know nor care 
whether I were living or dead. My brothers and sister fared better ; 
they indulged in habits of active exercise, and strengthened their 
constitutions morally and physically to a degree that even enabled 
them to present a successful front of opposition to the tyranny exer- 
cised over them. But I shut myself up in a close room : I isolated 
myself in such a manner from my own nearest relations, that with 
one voice they all proclaimed me ** mad." Perhaps I was : this much 
at least is certain, that it was precisely at that period (from my 
tenth to my fourteenth year) that the seeds of moral insanity were 
developed within me, which afterwards grew up into a tree of giant 
altitude, 

Hy schooling during those early days stood me in some stead. Yet 
I attended little to the mere technical instruction given to me in school. 
I rather tried to derive information from general study than from dry 
rules and special statements. One anecdote I may be permitted to 
give here, which will somewhat illustrate the peculiar condition of my 
moral and intellectual being at this period. I had been sent to Mr. 
Courtney's Academy in Derby-square. It was the first evening of my 
entrance (in 1820), when I had completed my eleventh year. Twenty 
boys were arranged in a class ; and to me, as the latest comer, was 
allotted the lowest place— a place with which I was perfectly contented. 
The question propounded by the schoolmaster was, "What is a 
parenthesis ?" But in vain did he test their philological capacities : 
one alone attempted some blundering explanation from the grammar ; 
and finally to me, as the forlorn hope that might possibly save the 
credit of the school, was the query referred. "Sir," said I, " I have 
only come into the school to-day, and have not had time to look into 
the grammar ; but I should suppose a parenthesis to be something 
included in a sentence, but which might be omitted from the sentence 
without injury to the meaning of the sentence.'' "Go up, sir," 
exdaimed tiiie master, " to the head of the dass." With an emotion 
of boyish pride I asstmied the place allotted me ; but the next minute 

in the course of theee memoirs. But as Blalebranehe saw all thio^ in QiQ^i so I see 
0OD in all things. GK)D is the idea of mj mind. 

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68o Clarence Mangan^s Autobiography. 

found me once more in my original position. " Why do yoa go down 
again, sir?" asked the worthy pedagogue. "Because, sir," cried I, 
boldly, " I have not deserved the head place ; g^ve it to this boy" — 
and I pointed to the lad who had all but succeeded — ''he merits it 
better, because at least he has tried to study his task." The school- 
master smiled: he and the usher whispered together, and I was 
remanded to a seat apart. On the following day no fewer than three 
Eoman Catholic clergymen, who visited the Academy, condescended 
to enter into conversation with me : and I very well recollect that one 
of them, after having heard me read, ** Blair on the Death of Christ," 
from " Scott's Lessons," clapped me on the back, with the exclamation, 
"You'll be a rattling fellow, my boy; but see and take care of 
yourself." 

In Qonnection with this anecdote I may be permitted to mention a 
singular fact, namely, that in my earlier years I was passionately fond 
of declaiming, not for my auditors but for myself. I loved to indulge 
in solitary rhapsodies, and, if intruded on upon those occasions, I was 
made very unhappy. Yet I had none of the ordinary shyness of boy- 
hood. I merely felt or fancied that between me and those who ap- 
proached me, no species of sympathy could exist : and I shrank from 
communion with them as from somewhat alien from my nature. This 
feeling continued to acquire strength daily, until in after years it be- 
came one of the grand and terrible miseries of my existence. It was 
a morbid product *of the pride and presumption which, almost hidden 
from myself, constituted even from my childhood governing traits in 
my character, and have so often rendered me repulsive in the eyes of 
others. But a severe check was in preparation for these faiilts. My 
father's circumstances at length grew desperate : within the lapse of 
a very limited period he had failed in eight successive establishments 
in different parts of Dublin, until finally nothing remained for him to do 
but sit down and fold his arms in despair. Buin and beggary stared 
him in the face ; his spirit was broken ; and as a last resource he looked 
to the wretched members of his family for that help which he should 
have rather been able to extend to them.* I was fifteen years old ; 
could I not even then begin to exert myself for the behoof of my 
kindred ? If my excellent mother thought so, she said nothing ; but 
my father undertook the solution of the question ; and I was appren- 

* Mangan was himBelf <' The NamelesB One '' of whom he sang : — 
** Tell how his boyhood waa one drear night hour, 
How shone for him through his grief and gloom 
No star of all heayen sends to light our 
Path to the tomb. 
" Till, spent with toil, dreeing death for others. 

And some whose hands should hare wrought for him 
(If children lire not for sires and mothers), 
His mind grew dim." 



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Clarence Mangan's Autobiography. 68 1 

ticed to a scrivener. Taken from my books, obb'ged to relinquish my 
solitary rambles and musings, and compelled, for the miserable pittance 
of a few shillings weekly, to herd with the coarsest of associates, and 
suffer at their hands every sort of rudeness and indignity which their 
uncultivated and semi- savage natures prompted them to inflict on me 1 
** Thus bad began, but worse remained behind." 



CHAPTER in. 
At this time we — that is, my father, my mother, my brothers, my sister, 
and myself — tenanted one of the dismalest domiciles, perhaps, to be met 
with in the most forlorn recesses of any city in Europe. It consisted 
of two wretched rooms, or rather holes, at the rear of a tottering old 
fragment of a house, or, if the reader please, hovel, in Chancery-lane. 
These dens, one of which was over the other, were mutually connected 
by means of a steep and almost perpendicular ladder, down which it 
was my fortune to receive many a tumble from time to time upon the 
sloppy earthen floor beneath. Door or window there was none to the 
lower chamber ; the place of the latter, in particular, being supplied 
not veiy elegantly, by a huge chcusm in the bare and broken wall In 
the upper apartment, which served as our sleeping-room, the spiders 
and beetles had established an almost undisputed right of occupancy ; 
while the winds and rains blew in on all sides, and whistled and 
howled through the winter nights like the voices of unquiet spirits. It 
was to this dreary abode, without, I believe, a parallel for desolateness, 
that I was accustomed to return from my employer's office each night 
between eleven and twelve through three long years. I scarcely re- 
garded my own sufferings when I reflected on those of my relatives — 
my mother especially, whose fortitude was admirable — and yet I did 
suffer, and dreadfully. I was a slave of the most miserable order. 
Coerced to remain for the most part bound to one spot from early 
morning till near midnight, tied down to "the dull drudgery of the 
desk's dead wood " unceasingly, without sympathy or companionship, 
my heart felt as if it were gradually growing into the inanimate mate- 
rial I wrote on. I scarcely seemed like a thing of life ; and yet at 
intervals the spirit within me would struggle to vindicate itself; and 
the more poetical part of my disposition would seek to burst into im- 
perfect existence. Some lines which I produced about this time may 
serve to give my readers a notion of the sentiments which, even amid 
want and bitter pain, and loneliness of soul, may sometimes agitate 
the breast of a boy of sixteen : — 

GENIUS. 
O Genius ! Gknius I all thou dost endure 
First from thyself, and finally from those 
The Earth-bound and the blind, who cannot feel 
That there be souls with purposes as pure 

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682 Clarence MangatCs Autobiography. 

And lofty as the mountain-snows, and zeal 

All quenchless as the spirit whence it flows ! 

In whom that fire, struck but like spark from steel 

In other bosoms, eyer lives and glows ! 

Of such, thrice blest are they, whom, ere mature 

Life generate woea which God alone can heal, 

His mercy calls to a loftier sphere than this — 

For the mind's conflicts are the worst of woes ; 

And fathomless and fearful yawns the Abyss 

Of Darkness thenceforth under all who inherit 

That melancholy changeless hue of heart. 

Which flings its pale gloom o'er the years of Youth — 

Those most — or least — illumined by the spirit 

Of the Eternal Archetype of Truth. 

For such as these there is no peace within 

Either in Action or in Contemplation, 

From first to lastr— but» eyen as they begin, 

They close the dim night of their tribulation ; 

Worn by the torture of the untiring breast» 

Which scorning all, and shunned of all, by turns, 

Upheld in solitary strength begot 

By its own unshared shroudedness of lot, 

Through years and years of crushed hopes, throbs and bums, 

And bums and throbs, and will not be at rest, 

Searching a desolate Earth for that it findeth not!" 

^y physical and moral torments, my endurances from cold, heat» 
hunger, and fatigue, and that isolation of mind which was perhaps 
worse than all, in the end flung me into a fever, and I was transmitted 
to an hospital. This incident I should hardly deem worthy of chroni- 
cling if it had not proved the occasion of introducing into my blood 
the seeds of a more virulent disease than any I had yet known — an. 
incurable hypochondriasis. There was a poor child in the convalescent 
ward of the institution, who was afflicted from head to foot with an 
actual leprosy ; and there being no vacant bed to be had, I was com- 
pelled to share that of this miserable being, which, such was my igno-^ 
ranee of the nature of contagion, I did wifiiout the slightest suspicion 
of the inevitable result. But in a few days after my dismissal from 
the hospital this result but too plainly showed itself on my person in 
the form of a malady nearly as hideous and loathsome as that of the 
wretched boy himself ; and, though all external traces of it have long 
since disappeared, its moral effects remain incorporated with my 
mental constitution to this hour, and will probably continue with me 
through life. It was woe on woe, and " within the lowest deep a lower 
deep.'* Yet will it be credited ? my kindred scarcely seemed to take 
notice of this new and terrible mark so set upon me. Privation and 
despair had rendered them almost indifferent; to everything ; and for 
me, sullen, self-inwrapt, diseased within and without, I cared not to 



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Clarence Mangan^s Autobiography. 683 

call their attention to it : '* Mj heart had grown hard, and I hurt my 
hand when I struck it."* 

Very slowly, and only when a kind acquaintance (for I was not yet 
utterly deserted), came forward to rescue me from the grave by his 
medical skill, did I in some degree conquer the malignity of this 
ghastly complaint. Another disease, however, and another succeeded, 
until all who knew me began to regard me as one appointed to a linger- 
ing, living martyrdom. And, for myself, I scarcely knew what to think 
of my own condition, though I have since learned to consider it as the 
mode and instrument which an all-wise Providence made use of to 
curb the outbreakings of that rebellious and gloomy spirit that smoul- 
dered like a volcano within me. My dominant passion, though I 
guessed it not, was pride ; and this was to be overcome by pain of every 
description and the continual sense of self -helplessness. Humiliation 
was what I required ; and that bitterest moral drug was dealt out to 
me in lavish abundance. Nay, as if Pelion were to be piled on Ossa 
for the purpose of contributing to my mortification, I was compelled to 
perform mj very penances — those enjoined me by my spiritual direc- 
tor — in darkness and subterranean places, wheresoever I could bury 
myself from the face of living man. And they were all merciful dis- 
pensations these, to lift me out of the hell of my own nature, compared 
with those which the Almighty afterwards adopted for my deliverance. 

My apprenticeship terminated : but so did nothing else in my un- 
happy position. The burden of an entire family lay upon me, and the 
down-dragging weight on my spirit grew heavier from day to day. I 
was now obliged to seek employment wheresoever I could find it, and 
thankful was I when even my father and mother were enabled to reap 
the fruits of my labour. But my exasperated mind (made half mad 
through long disease), would frequently inquire, though I scarcely 
acknowledge the inquiry to myself, how or why it was that I should 
be called on to sacrifice the Immortal for the Mortal ; to give away 
iirevocably the Promethean fire within me for the cooking of a beef- 
steak ; to destroy and damn my own soul that I might preserve for a 
few miserable months or years the bodies of others. Often would I 
wander out into the fields and groan to GOD for help. ** Be Profund%9 
elamavi !** was my continual cry. And in truth, although my narrative 
scarcely appears at a glance to justify me, my circumstances taken 
altoge^er were amply sufficient to warrant the exclamation. A ruined 
soul in a wasted frame ; the very ideal and perfection of moral and 
physical evil combined in one individual. Let the reader imagine 
these and draw his oonclusBons. f 

After a short while matters appeared to brighten with me, or rather 
to assume a less dusky aspect. I was advised by a worthy medical 
friend of mine, Mr. Graham of Thomas-street, a man of considerable 

♦Shakespeare. DgitzedbyGoOglc 



684 Clarence MangarCs Autobiography 

knowledge and skill, thougli but an apothecary, to try what such kinds 
of exercise as fencing or ball-playing might accomplish for me. '* The 
mind, my dear young friend," obserred this intelligent man to zne, 
" is the key to tiiie health, a somewhat rusty key to persons of coarser 
constitutions, but an bLLed key to all of nervous temperaments and 
susceptible apprehensions. You haye taken long walks : they have 
done you no good : why P Because you felt no interest in them, hBcaiu^ 
whiU your liml$ walked one way^ your mind walked another. Tiy the foil 
or the racket, and you will be a new man at the end of a fortnight." 
I took my friend's advice and soon was in a condition to bear testimony 
to the truth of his vaticination. Never, perhaps, was such a change 
witnessed in the health and spirits of a human being as that which 
supervened in mine after the lapse of a week. The almost miraculously 
recuperative power which has since been frequentiy observed to exist 
in me enjoyed full and fair play. I arose, as it were, out of myself. I 
had for a long time subsisted upon nothing but bread and tea, or milk» 
with my heart only for animal food (''bitter diet," as Byron remarks), 
giving the grosser aliments they required to my relatives ; but I now 
felt as though I could feast upon air and thought alone. The great 
overcurtaining gloom, which had become to me a sort of natural at- 
mosphere, a fifth element, still in a degree surrounded me ; but my 
experience of existence at this time was that of a comparative paradise. 
Alas ! it could not endure, and it did not. Another book in the Iliad 
of my woes was to be opened, and black and appalling ^was the page 
that it presented to my view. 



CHAPTER IV. 
" Farewell the tranquil mind ! farewell content !'* — Shakespeare, 

Amid the glow of soul which I experienced through the change in my 
situation from absolute bondage to comparative liberty, I could not 
forget the links that bound me to those who still depended on me for 
the very breath of life. That they appeared as indifferent to my 
powers of endurance as the storms are to those of the rock they 
assault was nothing to me. That they were in health, and in the 
prime of life, while I was in a state of chronical illness, and old in 
soul though young in years, touched me littie or nothing. They were 
still my parentp, and only as such could I regard them. I willingly 
overlooked the maxim of St. Paul that the elder should lay up for the 
younger portion of the faanily, and not the younger for the elder. 
Within about nine months after the termination of my apprenticeship 
a situation was offered me in a solicitor's office, the salary derivable 
from which, though humble enough, was sufficent to elevate us in 
some degree above the depths of our former poverty ; and this situa- 

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Clarence Mangaris Autobiography. 685 

tion I accepted, not gladly — for a foreboding of what was to come 
haunted me now with more intense force than ever — ^but resignedly, 
and in the full belief that I was merely fulfilling a destiny which I 
could not oppose, and which I had no right to arraign. 

I weary the reader by calling on him for ever to listen to a tale of 
unmitigated calamity. But as I am bound to adhere to strict truth in 
this autobiography, he will kindly forgive as well the monotony of 
general reflection as of particular detail which he here encounters. 
By -and-by I may invite his attention to more cheerful and consolatory 
matter. At present the scroll which I am compelled to unroll before 
him is, like that of the prophet, '• Written within and without with 
mourning, lamentation, and woe." And perhaps those who are more 
desirous of understanding the motives than of listening to a cold recital 
of the actions of another may find some interest in perusing a record 
which, I willingly admit, embodies hardly a sentence upon which the 
mere worldling would care to expend a moment's reflection. 

I had not been long installed in my new situation before all the 
old maladies under which I had laboured returned with double force. 
The total want of exercise to which I was subjected was in itself suffi- 
cient to tell with ruinous effect upon a frame whose long-continued 
state of exhaustion had only received a temporary relief from the few 
months' change of life to which I have adverted. But other agencies 
also combined to overwhelm and prostrate me. The coarse ribaldry, 
the vile and vulgar oaths, and the brutal indifference to all that is 
true and beautiful and good in the tmiverse, of my office companions, 
affected me in a manner difficult to conceive. My nervous and hypo- 
chrondriacal feelings almost verged upon insanity. I seemed to myself 
to be shut up in a cavern with serpents and scorpions, and all hideous 
and monstrous things, which writhed and hissed around me, and dis- 
charged their slime and venom upon my person. These hallucinations 
were considerably aided and aggravated by the pestiferous atmosphere 
of the office, the chimney of which smoked continually, and for some 
hours before the close of the day emitted a sulphurous exhalation that 
at times literally caused me to gasp for breath. In a word I felt 
utterly and thoroughly miserable. The wretched depression of my 
spirits could not escape the notice of my mother ; but she passed no 
remark on it, and left me in the evenings altogether to myself and my 
books ; for unfortunately, instead of endeavouring somewhat to fortify 
my constitution by appropriating my spare hours to exercise, I con- 
sumed these in unhealthy reading. My morbid sensibilities thus daily 
increasing and gaining ground, while my bodily powers declined in the 
same proportion, the result was just such as might have been anticipated. 
For the second time of my life nature succumbed under the intolerable 
burden imposed upon her ; and an attack of illness removed me for a season 
from the sphere of my irksome and melancholy duties. My place-in the f 

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686 Clarence MangatCs Autobiography, 

office was assumed by my younger brother, John, a stout and healthy 
lad of nineteen, who had already acquired some slight experiences in 
the mysteries of scriyenery and attorneyship, and I returned home. 

My confinement to bed on this occasion was not of long duration ; 
but, though after the lapse of a few days, able to crawl about once 
more, I was far indeed from being recovered. 

A settled melancholy took possession of my being. A sort of torpor 
and weariness of life succeeded to my former oyer-excited sensibilities. 
Books no longer interested me as before; and my own unshared 
thoughts were a burden and a torment unto me. Again I essayed the 
effect of active exercise, but was soon compelled to give over, from 
sheer weakness and want of animal spirits. I indulged, however, 
occasionally in long walks into ^the country around Dublin, and the 
sight of hills, fields, and streams, to which I had long been unaccus- 
tomed, produced in me a certain placidity of mind, with which, had I 
understood my own true interests for time and eternity, I ought to 
have remained contented. But contented I did not, and would not 
remain. I desired to be aroused, excited, shocked even. My grand 
moral malady — for physical ailments I also had, and singular of their 
kind — ^was an impatience of life and its commonplace pursuits. I 
wanted to penetrate the great enigma of human destiny and my own» 
to know "the be-all, and the end-all," the worst that could happen 
here or hereafter, the final dSnouement of a drama that so strangely 
tmited the two extremes of broad farce and thrilling tragedy, and 
wherein mankind played at once the parts of actors and spectators. 

If I perused any books with a feeling of pleasure, they were such 
as treated of the wonderful and terrible in art, nature, and society. 
Descriptions of battles and histories of revolutions; accounts ol 
earthquakes, inundations, and tempests ; and narratives of '' moving 
accidents by flood and field," possessed a charm for me which I could 
neither resist nor explain. It was some time before this feeling 
merged into another, Uie sentiment of religion and its ineffable mys- 
teries. To the religious duties enjoined by my Church I had always 
been attentive, but I now became deeply devotional, addicted myself 
to ascetic practices, and studied the lives of the saints wit^ the pro- 
f oundest admiration of their grand and extraordinary virtues. If my 
mind had been of a larger and sterner order, all tlds had been well 
enough, and I should doubtless have reaped nothing but unmixed 
advantage from my labours. But, constituted as I was, th^ effe<^ 
of those upon me was rather injurious than beneficial. I gradually 
became disquieted by doubts, not of the great truths of faith, for these 
I never questioned, but of my own capacity so to speak, for salvation. 

Taking a retrospective view of all the events of my fore^ne yean, 
reflecting on what I had been and then was, and meditating on what 
it was probable that I should live to be, I began to think^with Bq^n, 

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Clarence Mangan's Autobiography. 687 

that it is not impossible that some beings may have been created 
expressly for unhappiness ; and I knew that Gowper had llyed, and 
perhaps died, in the dreadful belief that he himself was a castaway, 
and a *' vessel of wrath fitted for destruction." 

Scruples of conscience also multiplied upon me in such ntmibers in 
the interval between each of my coi^essions that my mind became a 
chaos of horrors, and all the fires of Pandemonitmi seemed to bum in 
my brain. I consulted several clergymen with regard to what I should 
do in this extremity. Most recommended me to mix in cheerful and 
gay society. One alone, I remember, counselled me to pray. And 
pray I did, for I had so held myself aloof from the companionship of 
others that I knew of no society with which I could mix. But I 
derived no consolation from praying. I felt none of that confidence 
in Gk)d then, which, thanks to his almighty power and grace, I have 
so frequently known. The gates of heaven seemed barred against 
me : its floor and walls of brass and triple adamant, repelled my cries ; 
and I appeared to myself to be sending a voice of agony into some 
interminable chasm. This deplorable interior state, one which worlds 
and diadems should not bribe me into experiencing again, continued 
for about a twelvemonth, after which it gradually disappeared, not 
through progress of time, not through any progress of reasoning, or, 
indeed, any effort of my own, but remarkably enough, precisely through 
the agency of the very remedy recommended me by my spiritual 
advisers^ 



CHAPTER V. 

" Farewell the tranquil mind ! Farewell content." — Shaketpeare.^ 

On the south side of the city of Dublin, and about half-way down an 
avenue which breaks the continuity of that part of the Circular-road, 
extending from Harold's Cross to Dolphin's Bam, stands a house plain 
in appearance, and without any peculiarity of external structure to 
attract the passenger's notice. Adjoining the house is a garden, with 
a sort of turret-lodge at the extreme end, which looks forth on the high 
road. The situation is lone and unpicturesque ; and he who should 
pause to dwell on it must be actuated by other and deeper and, pos- 
sibly, sadder feelings than any that such a scene would be likely to 
excite in the breast of the poet or the artist. Perhaps he should be 
nnder the influence of such emotions as I recently experienced in passing 
the spot after an absence from it of seventeen years. Seventeen years I 
let me rather say seventeen centuries. Por life upon life has followed 

* Chapter UL has no motto, and Chapter V. repeats the motto of chapter IT.— 
Ed. I. M. 

Vol. x.. No. 113. ^ , 

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688 Clarence MangarCs Autobiography. 

and been multiplied on and within me during that long, long era of pas- 
sion, trouble, and sin. The Pompeii and Herculaneum of mj soul have been 
dug up from their ancient sepulchres. The few broken columns and 
solitary arches which form the present ruins of what was once Palmyra, 
present not a fainter or more imperfect picture of that great city as it 
flourished in the days of its youth and gloiy than I, as I am now, of 
what I was before I entered on the career to which I was introduced 
by my first acquaintance with that lone house in 1831. Years of so 
much mingled pleasure and sorrow ! whither haye you departed ? or 
rather, why were you allotted me ? You delivered me from sufferings 
which, at least, were of a guiltless order, and would shortly, in a better 
world, have been exchanged for joys, to give me up to others, the 
bitter fruits of late repentance, and which await no recompense, and 
know no change, save change from severe to severer. But, alas I thus 
it was, is, and must be. My plaint is chorussed by millions. Gene- 
ration preaches to generation in vain. It is ever and everywhere the 
same old immemorial tale. From the days of Adam in Eden to our 
own, we purchase knowledge at the price of innocence. Like Aladdin 
in the subterranean garden, we are permitted to heap together and 
gather up as much hard bright gold and diamonds as we will — but we 
are forever, therefore, entombed from the fresh natural green pastures 
and the healthy daylight. 

In the course of my desultory rambles about the suburbs of the 
city it would sometimes happen that I should feel obliged to stop and 
rest, even though nothing better than a hedge-side or a field-hillock 
afforded me the means of a few moments' repose. The reader will, 
therefore, imagine me reclining, rather than seated, on a long knoll of 
grass by a stream-side beyond Bathfamham, and closely adjacent to 
Boundtown, while the sun is setting on an evening in June. I held 
inmy hand a book, with the covers turned down ; it was Lu Pem^es de 
Faseah As I lay revolving in my mind some of the sublime truths 
contained in this celebrated work, I was somewhat suddenly ap- 
proached and accosted by a fashionably dressed and intelligent-looking 
yoimg man, whom I had twice or thrice before observed sauntering 
about this neighbourhood. 

" May I ask," he inquired, " the nature of your studies?" 

I placed the book in his hand. He looked at it for a moment, and 
then returned it to me without speaking. 

" You don't read French ?" said I, interrogatively. 

" Oh, yes, I do," he replied ; ** who does not nowadays. But that 
is a very unhealthy work." 

I perceived at once that there was a great gulf between us ; and as 
I had even then learned enough of the nature of the human mind to 
know that disputation hardly ever converts or convinces, I contented 
myself with remarking, in an indifferent manner : ** Everything in this 
world is unhealthy." 

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Clarence MangarCs Autobiography. 689 

The stranger smiled. *' And yet," said he, "you feel pleasure, I 
am sure, in the contemplation |of this beautiful scenery ; and you 
admire the glory of the setting sun." 

" I have pleasure in nothing, and I admire nothing," answered I ; 
"I hate scenery and suns. I see nothing in creation but what is 
fallen and ruined." 

My companion made no immediate remark upon this, but after a 
pause took the book out of my hand, and turning over the leaves, 
read aloud that passage in which Pascal compares the world to a 
dungeon, and its inhabitants to condemned criminals^ awaiting the 
summons to execution.* 

"Can you believe, my friend," the stranger asked, "for short as 
our acquaintance has been, I venture to call you such, can you believe 
this to be true?" 

" Why not ?" I replied. " My own experiences, feelings, life, 
sufferings, all testify to my soul of its truth. But before I add any- 
thing further, will you allow me to ask what religion you profess ?" 

" A good one, I hope," he answered ; " I have been*reared a Catholic 
Christian." 

" Then," said I, " you know that it is the belief of the holiest and 
most learned theologians of your Church that the majority of mankind 
will be irrevocably consigned to eternal misery." 

" Beally I know no such thing," he replied. 

" Have you never read Massillon," I asked, " on the small number 
of the saved ?" 

" I take the judgment of no one individual, even in my own 
Church," he answered, " as my guide. The goodness, the justice of 
God " 

I interrupted him. " Stop," said I, " What do you " 

\Kere the Mantuertpt comei suddenly to an endJ] 

* Upon which, by the way, Voltaire has nothing better to say than this : ** Re- 
garder Ic monde comme ud cachot, et les hommes comme des criminels qu'on ra exe- 
cuter, c'estU la pens^ed'un fanatique.** Strange that a man of such an analytical 
mind as the philosopher of Forney, should not have perceived that Fanaticism, so- 
called, is but another name for Enthusiasm ; the spirit that has always governed, and 
to eternity will govern the Universe. Its proper name is Activity. It 

** makes the madmen who have made men mad 

By their contagion,— conquerors and kings, 
Founders of sects and systems." — Byron, 
But with the vast amount of evil, which it has unquestionably generated, is inter- 
mingled a still vaster amount of good, and if ** a little leaven leaveneth the whole 
lump,*' what may we not anticipate from an abundance of it ? [But Voltaire was 
right in this instance, and Pascal was soured by Jansenism, which dwelt more on the 
Fall than on the Bedemption.] 



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( 690 ) . 



THE HOLT SOULS. 

BY BIBTBB MABY AOmBS. 

THE mystic Styx by them is safely past ; 
And the firm shore beyond its waves they gain ; 
Their life-long burdens are laid down at last. 
Never to press upon their souls again. 
Yet are they still denied 
An entrance to repose. 
Till Justioe, satisfied, 
The port of peace unclose. 

Their eyes have looked upon the Light of Light ; 

Their hearts have leaped within them at his voice ; 
Yet are they shut out from that blissful sight 
In which the perfect only can rejoice : 
In purgatorial fire. 

By Ood's most just decree, 
Waiting until their souls acquire 
Their destined purity. 

They see sin's evil now without excuse, 

Satan can doak its malice never more ; 
Each is the first his own guilt to accuse 
And Gbd's divine perfection to adore. 
No words of murmur rise 

Amidst the keenest pain — 
So hateful iu their eyes 
Is now the slightest stain. 

They suffer in a crucible intense, 

But with a patience greater than its heat ; 
Their hearts are thrilling with a love immense, 
With burning thirst, yet with submission sweet. 
bitter punishment ! 

And bliss supreme so near ! 
weary banishment 
From Him now held so dear ! 

Each holy soul with untold yearning longs 
After tibe rest for which it cannot plead ; 

To us alone the precious right belongs 
To help them in this hour of direst need. 



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The Dwarfs Mirror. 691 

And in forced silence stands 

Each fettered soiil^ to wait 
Till we, with prayerful hands. 

Open heaven's blessed gate. 



THE DWAEF'S MIEROR 

A LEGEND FOB CfilLDBEK, ADAPTED FROM THE OEBMAN. 



FBITZ and Hedwig lived with their father, who was ranger and 
gamekeeper to the prince of one of the old G-erman principalities, 
in a pretty roomy cottage, picturesquely situated in the midst of a 
forest of tall sombre pines, and of grand old evergreen hemlock-trees. 

The children's mother was dead, but their grandmother lived with 
them, and looked after them. But, indeed, she required care herself if 
she could only get it, as she was rapidly becoming very old and feeble. 
She spent most of the winter days sitting beside the stove spinning, 
only stirring at meal-times to hobble into the kitchen to cook. 

Except in the summer-time, when they attended school, the chil- 
dren's lives were anything but bright, their father being almost always 
away, going his rounds through the forest, or shooting game for the 
Prince. When he did come home, he was silent and moody ; very tired, 
too ; and after having cleaned the gun, he invariably fell asleep. The 
cottage was scarcely ever visited by anyone, except, rarely, on a bright 
day, by Lena, who came from the village, two miles distant, with 
supplies. Sometimes she could not come for days, the paths being 
covered with snow ; so through the winter Fritz and Hedwig lived like 
two little mice in a hole, seldom leaving the cottage ; as attending 
school in winter's harsh uncertain weather was impracticable. The 
ranger went out in every kind of weather, always taking with him 
Faust, the great Newfoundland dog, a capital guide home over the 
snow, and the children*s sole playfellow. 

Now and again Hedwig set her little wheel spinning, but at short 
intervals, as she wearied of the monotony. Fritz carved wood into 
every form and fashion he could devise ; but he, too, soon gave that up, 
as he was perpetually cutting his poor little fingers. Next he tried 
house-building with sticks and stones, which came crashing down with 
such a noise, his grandmother said her head ached ; so that, too, had 

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692 The Dwarfs Mirror. 

to cease. Then lie fretted and fumed at his lot, one Jmoment 
wishing to be the prince's son, and the next to be a gipsy boy, that 
he might camp out, and never be cooped up in a house. 

One evening before Christmas was drearier and lonelier than ever. 
The paths through the forest had been snowed over for some days, so 
that even Lena could not come from the village. The lamp oil was 
all used, there was not any light but from the bright, cold moon. 
The children felt frightened by their own shadows, and kept close to 
their grandmother, whom Fritz coaxed and teased, in a loud voice, (she 
was slightly deaf) for a story. 

" Dear grandmother, do, please, tell a story, even a short one ;— you 
must know some more besides those you told us long ago ; — do tiy, 
grandmother, we are so dull." 

'' I cannot remember one,*child, not one,'' she muttered ; '^ I have 
forgotten all." 

" TVell, grandmother, tell the one about the Dwarfs in the Quarry 
over again ; you can remember that." 

"The Dwarfs in the Quarry ? Well, I will try ; listen if I tell it 
correctly : — 

" About a mile from this, on the side of the slope of the quarry, 
there was once a large, smooth stone, steady as a wall, and very like 
one, not a chip out of it, resting on a beautiful green moss-grown plot, 
underneath which the Dwarfs had a miniature subterranean cify> with 
squares, streets, market-places, and a palace for their queen. 

"In those good old times the quany had not been discovered by men ; 
so the unmolested, happy Dwarfs came up every fine summer's day 
to pic-nic in the quarry, and to dance on tiie green sward. But, alas 
happiness in this world cannot last, and, as time passed on, some 
huntsmen in the forest saw the valley, and the quarry full of beautiful 
stone, and spoke of it in a distant city. After a little, men arrived with 
boring and blasting-irons to break blocks of it for building, and the 
Dwarfs (happy no longer) got uneasy and anxiotis about the safety of 
their rock and their kingdom. 

" Then they worked industriously every night, and all night, 
loosening and throwing stones down into the valley, hoping thus to 
protect their precious rock ; but these efforts were unavailing, as the 
men came searching higher, saw the rock, blasted it into large and 
small blocks, which f eU here and there over the green plot, and so 
heavily that the beloved subterranean dty was shattered. However, 
none of the Dwarfs were killed, as they had long foreseen this, and 
prepared for it, by digging an underground passage, through which 
they escaped out into the forest. Nobody knows where they are, if 
they have built another city, or even if they are alive or dead. The 
legend is, that on St. Thomas's eve, one of the Dwarfs always watches 

he green plot, and grants a request to anyone who visits it, and 
rs oflE three stones on that night." Digitized by GoOgle 



The Dwarf's Mirror. 693 

80 the story ended, the old grandmother lying back exhausted from 
the exertion of talking more than usual ; Hedwig still keeping close 
beside her, and Fritz silent and preoccupied, wondering if the Dwarfs 
were still alive, and if they ever visited their former haunts. 

Suddenly Faust's bark was heard heralding the ranger's approach. 
He, poor man, arrived tired, cross and cold, to grope about in the dark- 
ness for something to eat, but unsuccessfully : because, as frequently 
happened now, the poor old grandmother quite forgot him ; so he went 
to bed, hoping to forget his discomforts in sleep. He always slept 
soundly, and snored too, nothing ever disturbed him, except a shot in 
the forest. Fritz slept in the same room ; Hedwig and her grand- 
mother occupied another small one. 

Fritz had heard the first part of this story before, but not the 
legend ; the idea of a possible visit from the Dwarfs, set his little 
heart beating ; he could not close his eyes all night, imagining how 
delightfully the dreary winter could be enlivened by them. 

He whispered to Hedwig in the morning, *' The day after to-morrow 
will be St. Thomas's ; then we must go roll three stones from the moss 
plot" 

She looked shocked, saying, "That is only a fairy tale of a 
hundred years ago, and I should be afraid to go out in the dark." 

Fritz did not answer, but he thought what cowards girls are, and 
formed a resolution, of which we shall hear more presently. 



n. 

St. Thomas's Eve. Everything seemed favourable for Fritz, whose 
father returned earlier than usual to supper, and feeling very tired, 
was soon asleep and snoring. After a little, Fritz, who had not 
undressed, put on a fur cap, pulling it well down over his ears to 
protect them from the frost, and stole out quietly, patting Faust, who 
did not seem to understand being left behind. 

At first, the extreme stillness of tbe forest made Fritz hesitate 
about going on. However, the moon shone brightly, he soon became 
courageous, and walked rapidly towards the quarry. The blocks 
of stone were so thickly strewn, only a stray ray of moonlight could 
penetrate here and there ; and witiiout a sound to be heard, or a 
murmur of wind through the branches of the pines, the valley was 
very sombre and still. With some difficulty, Fritz found his way to 
the plot, which was nearly covered with stoiies, seized and threw one 
down into the valley — ^Uien a second — when holding a third, the 
largest he could lift, he heard a squeaking voice beside him ask : 
** Who are you? " He saw a very tiny man, as small as a soldier 

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694 '^^ Dwarfs Mirror. 

he had once seen in a box of toys at a fair, dressed in green like one 
of Bobin Hood's archers, (whom he guessed to be a Dwarf), standing 
in the only ray of moonlight, and raising his cap respectfully he 
answered, '< I am Fritz, the woodranger'a son." 

*• What are you doing here ? " 

" Throwing down stones." 

" Ah ! " observed the Dwarf, in a sad tone, " you are very good 
to think of us, and take such trouble about us ; but you cannot help 
us. However, I must try to reward you : have you any wish ? " 

Fritz became quite flurried. He thought of asking for a hoise to 
ride ; then for a cask of oil, that the cottage should never again be in 
darkness ; then for a sack of apples and nuts ; but none of Ihese were 
worth a wish, and finally he blurted out : " A pursef ul of money." 

The Dwarf seemed surprised, saying, '' 80 young, and already 
avaricious ! What do you want with money ? *' 

" I would build a flne large house, like the prince's, instead of our 
old cottage ; Hedwig should have a new dress ; and I would buy a cask 
of oil, that we may never be without a lamp during the winter." 

*' Hey, hey ; you young monkey," laughed the Dwarf. " You are 
too young to have the care of money ; you should see something of the 
world before owning a house. Hedwig can have a new dress without 
your buying it ; and as for oil, you can have an inexhaustible supply 
if you gather beech-nuts enough to make it." 

'' The winter is dreary," poor Fritz said, in a doleful tone of voice, 
half to himself. " I wish we had even a picture-book to amuse us in 
the long evenings." 

" Now, my boy, go home, and be happy. We Dwarfs always feel 
grateful to our friends, and reward them. I shall come after Chiist- 
mas with something to amuse you, and make your evenings pleasant'' 
Then the little green man vanished, and Fritz ran as fast as ever his 
feet could go the whole way home, lifted the latch gently, and crept 
quietly to his snug bed, where he soon fell asleep and dreamed of the 
Dwarf. 



in. 



Christmas. Quite a bright day for the forest children. Hedwig's 
godmother, the princess, sent her plenty of cakes and a new dress, not 
forgetting Fritz, to whom she gave a warm jacket The ranger 
brought apples and nuts, and stayed at home to roast a hare for 
dinner. Such fare was rare in the cottage. The grandmother was 
brisker than usual, busily preparing a Christmas pudding; but Fritz 
scarcely enjoyed all this, his thoughts wandering to the Dwarfs pio- 
mised visit, wondering what the "something" would be, and when 
the '' something" would come. 



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Google 



The Dwarfs Mirror. 695 

ChrutmM Night, Eyerjone fast asleep, except Fritz, who heard a 
low tap at the door. Quaking and trembling all over, he got up to 
open it. There stood his friend the Dwarf, with a small mirror in his 
hand* 

"Bring me to your play-room,** he c<Hnmanded. Fritz silently 
led the way, the Dwarf following with swift, noiseless steps, to an 
unoccupied sleeping-room, which the glass fully illuminated. There 
was not much to see, only an old bedstead in a recess, a rickety table 
with two legs, and three shaky chairs. The largest piece of furniture 
in the room was a ponderotis, queer, antique cupboard, black with 
age, fastened to the wall — a capital hiding-place for the children. 
There was a large round hole inside at the back of this. 

The Dwarf seemed to know the cupboard well, into which he 
slipped. Some hanmiering went on, and out he popped, and said : 
" Any morning or evening you feel dull, my boy, come to the cup- 
board, and look into the round hole,'* and then disappeared. 

Fritz went slowly to bed, feeling dazed, and not at all sure if he 
was dreaming, or if he had really seen the Dwarf. 

He confided all to Hedwig next morning, who laughed incredu- 
lously, but finally promised to go with him in the evening to the 
cupboard. Both of them spent the day in a state of excited expec- 
tation, thinking it would never end. But it did, as even the longest 
Lapland night does, and everything else, too, in this world. Then 
they went to the play-room, where Fritz put his head into the hole in 
which the Dwarf had fixed the mirror. " Hedwig, come ; there is room 
enough for you, too.** 

How beautiful ! The children could scarcely refrain from screech- 
ing with joy. They saw a long, wide hall, brilliant with wax-lights 
in gilt candelabra ; a gigantic Christmas-tree, sparkling with hundreds 
of variegated tapers, stood in the centre of the hall ; around and on it 
there were quantities of large and small toys, bon-bons and baskets, 
fruits and flowers. 

A biqyde, a printing press, a sword, a dnmi, a magic lantern, 
picture-books, a stable, a paint-box. Breathless in astonishment at a 
collection such as they had never before seen or imagined, the children 
whispered to one another, "For whom can all those be?*' when the 
door opened at the far end of the hall, admitting a delicate, pale- 
faced, thin boy, followed by a number of richly-dressed ladies and 
gentlemen. Smiling, but not seeming surprised, he inspected the toys. 
Hedwig and Fritz were astonished that all those should be for one 
child, and kept gazing on in wonder, till they heard their grand- 
mother call, " Children, where are you ?** They ran hurriedly to her, 
and spent the evening after supper chatting to each other about the 
magic mirror. 

" What a happy boy that is with all those toys ! " they repeated 

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696 The Dwar/^s Mirror. 

over and over again ; and they even dreamed it. They were up at 
daybreak, impatient to see the hall again, which was quite as beautiful 
as when lighted. The boy lay on a sofa in a silk dressing-gown ; he 
seemed utterly weary. Two of the books were on the floor. An 
oldish gentleman came in ; the children could hear him speak, evidently 
from a distance. 

'^ You are not tired already, prince, of all those presents, which 
would make others happy— children with only one toy, perhaps not 
even one?" 

"Other children, yes; but I am lonely, and I am tired of all 
the toys." 

'* Tour Royal Highness can invite visitors.*' 

"I know I can; but what do I care for them, or they for me? 
They come and say, * How are you, prince?* play with and talk to 
each other, get tired and go home, leaving me alone. I want to go 
about, as they do." 

** Your Boyal Highness can walk or drive." 

" Walk with you, or drive with a footman behind. Queer plea- 
sure ! I do wish I were a Gipsy boy. " 

Before the astonished children could hear more, they had to go to 
their grandmother, who called them to breakfast. 



IV. 



Fritz and Hedwig could not understand why the prince was so 
morose and sulky, and Fritz remarked, " We should be quite happy in 
his place." 

"Yes, but we have one another; you forget that," Hedwig 
answered. 

" Well, at all events," persisted Fritz, " rich children who have^ 
playfellows are perfectly happy." 

It was wonderful his tongue and Hedwig's were not tired ; they 
talked so much all day, and were so interested in discussing all they 
had seen pictured in the mirror, that time passed rapidly until dusk, 
when they again visited the cupboard. 

The hall had disappeared. Instead there was a forest — grand, 
with gigantic trees, like their own. In an open space a huge wood- 
flre was burning, at which venison was roasting ; dark-complexioned 
men and women stood about in groups, and numbers of swarthy 
children danced and g^amboUed to gay music. 

" That is fun I " said Fritz ; but Hedwig shook her wise little head 
disapprovingly — ^those antics were not to her taste. 

Presently a young gipsy appeared, carrying a basket of dried 
fruits, which he emptied on the ground. All the children crowded 

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The Dwarf's Mirror, 697 

round, eating greedily until they had enough, when they renewed their 
wild romps. 

Fritz longed to join, and almost thought he could, everything 
seemed so lifelike in the mirror. 

Eeluctantly he left the cupboard, in answer to the ranger's call, 
and talked so enthusiastically about the gipsies all the evening that 
poor Hedwig became miserable with the dread of his going to join a 
gipsy encampment, which she knew was on the confines of the forest. 

Early next morning he rushed to the magic mirror the moment he 
finished his prayers, not waiting for Hedwig, who was a very steady 
child, and whom no temptation could induce to hurry her prayers. 
However, she soon followed. 

The same treeless space was mirrored, and gipsies, too, who were 
evidently uneasy, and watching anxiously : and no wonder, for sud- 
denly the tramp, tramp of soldiers was heard, who, immediately 
appearing, surrounded the encampment, took all the gipsies prisoners, 
and charged them with theft. 

The gipsy children actually howled with fright as they were 
marched o^ in custody. 

Our two cottage children turned sadly away. " Fritz, there is your 
happy life ! Do you still fancy it ? " 

" Well, no, Hedwig ; they steal. I should not like to be a thief." 



Y. 

The magic mirror was left unvisited this evening, as the ranger did 
not go out, and the children hardly slept at night, so impatiently did 
they watch for daybreak ; but then they got so drowsy they overslept 
themselves, only awaking in time for breakfast. Greatly disappointed, 
they had to postpone visiting the cupboard until evening, where they 
went the moment dusk set in, wondering what was to be seen this time. 

What they saw was a lovely but small room, far more beautifully 
furnished than the princess's boudoir, where both children were 
allowed to see her every year, on Hed wig's birthday. 

The Mirror Boom was almbst fiUed with toys for boys and for 
girls ; on one side a lovely babyhouse, furnished with pretty little 
sofas, chairs, and tables ; numbers of tiny dolls, dressed as ladies and 
gentlemen — as servants too ; a toy kitchen, with brightly polished 
utensils, plates and pipkins, pots, pans, and gridirons, far more 
numerous than in a real kitchen. There was also a cradle with a baby- 
doU; and near this an immense doU, beautifully dressed, nearly as big 
as Hedwig. 

On the other side of the room there were several other toys : a 
fortress, with soldiers and cannons ; a shop, with raisins,^9lmonds. 

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698 The Dwarfs Mirror. 

sugar, and figs ; a carrier's waggon, with baJes and boxes. In mslied 
two little girls, and a boy who ran to the shop ; while the girls ran to 
the dolls. 

They all began to play, one girl baying some sweets at the shop 
for a penny, the other dressing and undressing the large doll ; then aU 
three went to the baby-house to play parties. 

Just then Fritz and Hedwig were called to supper ; so off they 
went without delay, but very sorry. 

Next morning they impatiently peeped in the magic mirror to see 
the happy children of the previous night ; but what a sight met their 
eyes I The room was in disorder ; the beautiful large doll's head was 
clawed and mangled by a cat which got into the room during the 
night, the door having been left open; and poor dolly was beautiful 
no longer. 

Little Feodora cried bitterly. " It is your own fault," said her 
sister ; " why did you leave the doll on the floor ?" " No such thing,' 
answered Feodora, who got into a passion; "it is your fault; you 
had the doU last." 

The two girls began to scold, and even (sad to relate) to strike 
each other, running round their brother's shop, which they upset, 
breaking numbers of the pretty cups and glasses, when he got vexed, 
and boxed the girls ; then so much fighting and ill-temper ensued, the 
forest children left the cupboard in disgust 



»i 



VI. 

The next picture was a pretty room, a table, on which cakes, 
sweets, tarts, fruit, biscuits, and bon-bons of various kinds were 
temptingly arranged. Two little girls sat at it—twins ; very fragile 
and sickly they looked. This was their birthday feast. 

•' Will you have a tart, Cissa?" 

" No, thank you, Nina ; I will take an apple." 

" An apple ! You know very well you are forbidden to eat fruit ; 
the doctor said yesterday you should not." 

** The tarts make me ill ; and as for sweets, they give me tooth- 
ache. Aunt £lma should not have sent them." 

'* Well," suggested Nina, " shall we go into the garden ?" 

** Yes, yes, let us go ; and, Nina, we shall wear our new hats." 

But before they went the baroness came in. *' Well, where are 
you off to ? Not out, surely ?" 

" Only to the garden, mamma." 

" No, my precious ones. The ground is damp, and the wind sharp; 
so you had better amuse yourselves at home to-day. I shall have the 
table cleared for your Noah's Ark ; and Cissa, dear, it is time you 
took your medicine*' — on hearing which Miss Cissa made a wry face. 

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The Dwarfs Mirror. 699 

Not caring^ to see her swallow the dose, Fritz and Hedwig went 
down to supper. 

Then they thought and talked about all the scenes in the magic 
mirror. 

" Fritz, do you think all children are unhappy ?'' 

« Indeed, I do not. If the prince had a sister to play with, if the 
gipsy children had honest parents, if those quarrelsome children were 
good-tempered, and if the twins were healthy — ^then all of them would 
be happy." 

'* Well, then, Fritz, your opinion, is that if children are honest, 
good-tempered, and healthy, and Iotc each other, they are happy V^ 

''No, it is not; certainly not, if they lead our didl lives, and are 
poor besides." 

Hedwig could not argue this point ; so she was silent. 



vn. 



Next night they were not impatient to visit the cupboard, as the 
picture last time was so unpleasant, they thought they would give up 
going this evening ; but when their grandmother nodded off to sleep, 
they became curious to have one peep more, and away they ran to the 
magic mirror. 

They cried aloud in delighted surprise ; " Our own room and our- 
selves — ^how'nice !" 

Eight ; — ^it really was, only brighter than usual, tidy and clean ; a 
fresh fern stood in its pot in the window, a pleasant contrast to the 
snow outside ; a bird fluttered and chirped merrily in a wicker cage, 
such as Fritz frequently saw made by peasant boys ; grandmamma 
actually sat there spinning, Hedwig at her side. Fritz, too, was 
there, and they heard their own voices singing as they were taught at 
school ; but the cottage had been so gloomy they never sang at home. 

Presently Fritz began to read aloud from a very old book, which 
had lain neglected and dusty on a shelf ever since his grandmother's 
eyes had become too weak to read. 

The children, astonished and silent, gazed into the mirror ; read 
they certainly could, but read at home, without necessity, they certainly 
never did. 

The Fritz in the mirror read aloud, " Joseph's History, " in a clear, 
distinct voice, so that his grandmother could hear every syllable. The 
children once (but a very long time ago) read "Joseph and his 
Brethren," and they now gave all their attention to. it, becoming very 
interested, until a distant bark of a dog was heard. Then up jumped 
the Hedwig in the mirror, placed a pair of slippers next Ihe stove, 
and hung her father's coat near. He and Faust soon appeared, when 

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700 The Dwarf's Mirror. 

Fritz helped to pull off liis damp coat and put the gun aside, T^hile 
Hedwig brought the dry coat and warm slippers. The children stared 
into the mirror, amazed at their occupations. 

Hitherto their father had gone to and returned from his day's 
work unnoticed, no one caring whether or not he was comfortable ; 
and now he was surprised at this attention. Quite pleased, he sat 
down, and when Hedwig placed the supper she had kept hot 1 • c 
him, he clapped her on the shoulder — ^what he had never done before — 
and began to speak of her dead mother, who had cared for her and 
loved Hm. Such a treat the children left with reluctance. 



VIII. 



Silently and thoughtfully they spent the remainder of the evening, 
and next morning began a new life. 

Hedwig cleaned the window, washed, rubbed, and tidied the room, 
the grandmother dreamily asking, " Is this a holiday ?*' 

Fritz brought in fir branches to decorate the house, and helped 
Hedwig to prepare breakfast, which tasted nicer than ever. Having 
cleared the table, Fritz fetched the Bible and read aloud, just as had 
been in the mirror. 

His grandmother spun, listened, and her heart softened. It was 
years since she had been able to go to church, and now, for the first 
time, she heard her grandson read. Tears came into her eyes. These 
effects of his reading made Fritz feel very proud. 

Hedwig sat at her wheel, listening. The morning passed plea- 
santly and quickly. When the grandmother rose to put potatoes to 
boil, Fritz started up. " Wait, grandmother, let me help you." He 
pumped water, blew the fire, washed the potatoes, his grandmother 
looking on, smiling ; and when after dinner the children sang, first 
timidly, then more courageously, the poor old woman was delighted. 

Late in the evening the ranger and Faust arrived, and everything 
occurred just as it had been pictured in the mirror. The ranger was 
greatly surprised at receiving this attention, told the children of his 
dead wife, the grandmother now and again adding her reoollectionB. 

At bedtime she fetched her old prayer-book, saying, "You must 
hear how Fritz reads." Sad to tell, for years the ranger had not 
prayed. He now listened with pride to his son, whose earnest, 
childish voice touched his heart ; and, as Fritz dosed the book, he 
clasped his hands and commenced, " Our Father." 

That night the children slept happily. Every day's duties, lovingly 
fulfilled^ did not bring the same pleasure as that first one; yet the angels 
of peace and of prayer had brought content to the cottage. Bu^ 



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Cardinal Gerontius and his Disciples. 701 

oooupations absorbed the children's time so fully, they could not visit 
the mirror for a week ; then they did, when they found written in its 
place, in gold letters : — 

" Fritz and Hedirig, tue mirror has done its work in teaching you the lesson you 
required — ^to be contented with your own lires, to make home bright and happy, and 
not to wish to be anyone else. God has placed you at He thinks beet. You will not 
see the mirror or me any more. 

•* Your friend, 

*'TheDwarp." 

Sadly they turned away, tears in their eyes, so touched did they 
feel at the good, kind dwarf's farewell, and firmly they resolved to 
profit by his advice. 

Years passed, and in their course brought sorrows and pleasures — 
sorrows in the deaths of the good old grandmother and the ranger ; 
pleasure in Fritz's success as a carpenter ; a very clever, hard-working 
master carpenter he became ; and Hedwig was his gentle guide all 
through life. 

The Dwarf's legend is mythical ; but children can draw the true 
moral fi^om it, that to be good is to be happy. 

Sisters should be loving, steady earthly guardian angels to their 
brothers; brothers protectors to their sisters. When death comes, 
the spiritual guardian angels appointed by God to record the deeds of 
this world will meet and escort them, in joy and in triumph, past the 
powers of evil, to heaven, where God's greeting will be : ** Come, ye 
blessed of My Father, possess the Kingdom prepared for you from 
the foundation of the world." M. M. 



CAEDINAL GERONTIUS AND HIS DISCIPLES. 

AN INTERCHANGE OF COMPLIMENTS. 

THE late Dr. David Moriarty— if he can still be called " the late " 
after the death of his successor in the See of Kerry and Ardfert — 
this most eloquent of Irish bishops, while he was yet President of 
All Hallows College, conducted one year the spiritual retreat of the 
students of Maynooth. The only phrase that a certain youthful listener 
carried away from all the earnest exhortations was this : " Politeness 
is the fuel of charity." Politeness has been defined to be benevolence 
in small things ; and politeness, understood in a true and high sense, 
is a safeguard of charity and a help to the practice of many solid 

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702 Cardinal Gerontius afid his Disciples. 

yirtues in daily life. Charles Lamb wrote to Coleridge : ^'Oh! my 
friend, let no man think himself released from the kind charities of 
relationship. These are the best fontidation for eyery species of 
benevolence." This seems to me a very important doctrine, which 
some may be inclined to OTerlook in practice. Even in the frank 
intimacy of dose kinship it is wise not to neglect some of the 
thoughtful forms and ceremonies of social intercourse. Many a mis- 
understanding has sprung up, much pain has been given, by a too 
great reticence, an excessive shyness about giving outward expression 
to the affection really felt for very familiar friends. The gentle and 
affectionate Oerald Griffin said with the fullest sincerity : — 

"Ibayeaheart: Td liye 

And die for him whoae worth I knew, 
Yet could not eeise his hand and giTe 
Hy full heart forth, at talkers do." 

Some who have the faculty of rhyming, and some who have not, 
have used verse occasionally as a medium for expressing pent-up 
feelings of this kind. The late Father Edward Caswall, of the Bir- 
mingham Oratoiy, did so in his ode '*To the Hand of a living 
Oatholio Author." Of course the hand which is thus addressed is 
that which wrote ''Loss and Gain," the "Apologia/* and "The Dream 
of Gerontius." 

Hail, sacred Force ! 
Hail, energy sublime! 
Fountain of present deeds, 
And manifold effects in future time ! 

Through thee haye sped 
Forth on their blazing way 
Conceptions fiery-wing'd, 
That shall the destinies of ages sway ! 

Through thee this Isle, 
Long bound in Satan's chain, ■ 
To her original faith 
Inclines, beyond all hope, an ear again ; 

And eyes askant. 
With a half wistful gaze, 
Passing in beauty by, 
The Vision of the Church of ancient days ! 

Symbol august! 
Here on my bended knee, 
I yenerate the truth 
And multitudinous grace that speak in thee. 

Thou, drawing back 
The curtains of the night ; 
First on this guilty soul. 
Shut up in heresy, didiit open light. 



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Cardinal Gerontius and his Disciples. 703 

Through thee on her 
Eternal morning rose ; 
Oh, how with all her powers 
Can she enough repay the debt she owes P 

We copy the foregoing from the second edition (in 1873) of Father 
Oaswall's " Hymns and Poems, Original and Translated." It was the 
first edition which led to the " interchange of compliments" referred 
to in the title of this paper. On the 1st of January, 1858, Dr. 
Kewman (as we called him then) wrote the following lines : '' To 
Edward Caswall (a Gift for the New Year, in return for his volume 
of Poems.") — 

Once, o'er a dear, calm pool, 

The fulness of an oTer-brimming spring, 

I saw the hawthorn and the chestnut fling 

Their willing arms, of yernal blossoms full 

And light green leayes : the lilac, too, was there; 

The prodigal laburnum, dropping gold ; 

While the rich gorse along the turf crept near, 

Close to the fountain's margin, and made bold 

To peep into that pool, so odm and clear — 

As if well pleased to see their image bright 

Eeflected back upon their innocent sight; 

Bach flower and blossom shy, 

Lingering the livelong day in still delight, 

Yet without touch of pride, to view. 

Yea, with a tender, holy sympathy. 

What was itself, yet was another too. 

So on thy Terse, my Brother and my Friend, 

— The fresh upweliing of thy tranquil spirit, — 

I see a many angel forms attend ; 

And gracious souls elect ; 

And thronging sacred shades, that shall inherit 

One day the azure skies ; 

And peaceful saints, in whitest gannents decked ; 

And happy infants of its second birth : — 

These, and all other plants of paradise. 

Thoughts from abore, and risions that are sore. 

And proridences past, and memories dear. 

In much content hang o'er that mirror pure, 

And recognise each other's facee there. 

And see a heaven on earth. 

A writer in this Magazine — ^reviewing Mr. John Charles Earle's 
last volume of poems, of which one of the best was a dedication of 
the whole to " John Henry Newman" — attempted an enumeration of 
the books inscribed in like manner with the name of the great 
Oratorian. One would have expected Father Ryder's recent " Poems, 
Original and Translated " to be an addition to the catalogue. No 
doubt it iTflw dedicated to His Eminence in spirit; nor was the poet 

Vol. X., No. 113. ^.^^^^ ^^ GoOglc 



704 Cardinal Gerantius and his Disciples. 

able to refrain from giving vent to his filial feelings in words also. 
Witness this exquisite triad of sonnets '' To Father Newman on his 
elevation to the Cardinalate." — 

I. 

nr H090RBIU 

All honoun are deserved and g^re content 
Within that city's golden quadrature, 
Where true awards all-righteous hands secure, 
And none may doubt or question the intent ; 
Nor human wills as here are warped and bent 
From the strict line of right by selfish lure. 
Or clashing interest ; but doth aye endure 
In each one's joy the unanimous consent. 

Methinks the purple that hath crowned thy yean 
Is thus accepted by the general Toice 
As each man's good, because so just a thing. 
High and aloof from selfish hopes and fears 
Strangers and friends with one accord rejoice. 
As they would antedate heayen's reckoning. 

n. 

IN MSMOBUM. 

Yes, all rejoice ; and all express their joy ; 
But this methought is but an idle boast, 
Standing beside his grare whose joy should most 
Abound upon this day ; whose life's employ 
Had been to shield thy life from the annoy 
Of daily burdens, nerer counting cost : 
In his enjoyment half thy joy is lost. 
And what thou hast, clogged with a dull alloy. 

He does rejoice, but it is far away ; 

He can no signal make that this is so ; 

No floweret breaks upon his graye to-day, 

This sad late springtide ; for the churchyards know 

No law but Nature's, till the Almighty stay 

The seasons in their solemn ebb and flow. 

in. 

n yoTUii. 

The yerse wherein I would congratulate 

More genial ending merits than a sigh ; 

So once again my feeble fingers try 

To twine some flowers whose cheerful hues might mate 

The goodly yestments of thy new estate 

With well-phrased wishes that should testify 

To all I feel ; yet there the flowers lie : 

Hy wishes so each other emulate. 



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Cardinal Gerontius and his Disciples. 705 

Gk>d onlj could to peaceful issue bring 
The conflict of their contrasts manifold ; 
For I would wish new blessings with the old, 
And all the old renewed, the flowers of spring 
In autumn's peaceful lap, and not one face 
Missed in thy circle from its wonted place. 

It may seem almost indelicate to conjecture; from the second of 
these sonnets, that the friend whose absence was felt amidst the con- 
gratulations offered to the new Cardinal must have been the devoted 
disciple singled out from all in the pathetic close of the Apologia pro 
VUd Sud: "You especially, dear Ambrose St John." But let me go 
a little further back : — 

" I hare closed this history of myself vith St Philip's name upon St, Philip's 
feast-day ; and, baring done so, to whom can I more suitably offer it, as a memorial 
of affection and gratitude, than to St. Philip's sons, my dearest brothers of this House, 
the Priests of the. Birmingham Oratory, Ambrose St. John, Henry Austin Mills', 
Heniy Bittleston, Edward Caswall, William Paine Nerille, and Henry Ignatius Dudley 
Ryder? who bare been so faithful to me ; who hare been so sensitiye of my needs ; 
who bare been so indulgent to my failings ; who hare carried me through so many 
trials ; who haye grudged no sacrifice, if I a«ked for it ; who baye been so cheerful 
under discouragements of my causing ; who haye done so many good works, and let 
me haye the credit of them ;— with whom I have liyed so long, with whom I hope to 
die. 

" And to you especially, dear Ambrose St. John ; whom God gaye me, when He 
took eyeryone else away; who are the link between my old life and my new ; who 
haye now for twenty-one years been so deyoted to me, so patient, so lealous, so tender 
who haye let me lean so hard upon you ; who haye watched me so narrowly ; who 
haye neyer thought of yourself, if I was in question." 

It is to this holy man to whom our fervent gratitude is due for all 
that he was to one who is so much to us— we have no doubt that it is to 
the death of Father Ambrose St. John that his illustrious friend 
refers in a letter of consolation which Mr. Heneage Dering has pub- 
lished in his life of his wife. Lady Georgiana Chatterton. "Your 
losing her here is thus the condition of your meeting her hereafter • 
this is how I comfort myself in my own great bereavement. I lost 
last year my dearest friend unexpectedly. I never had so great a loss. 
He had been my life, under God, for thirty-two years. I don't 
expect the wound will ever heaL From my heart I bless God, and 
would not have it otherwise, for I am sure the bereavement is one of 
those Divine Providences necessaiy for my attaining that heavenly 
rest which has, through God's mercy, been iJready secured. So cheer 
up, and try to do God's will in all things according to the day, as I 
pray to be able to do myself." 

I did not intend to piece together so many sacred and touching 
things when at the beginning I gave to this little mosaic so frivolous a 
name as "an interchange of compliments." 



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THE MONK'S PROPHECY. 

A TALE. 
BY ATTIB o'bBIEN. 

CHAPTER XXI. 

HALOYOir DAYS. 

Mrs. Galb had gone to the county town ; but, as she was expected to 
return in about an hour, the walking party said they would call again, 
and wandered about the grounds. The artist unstrapped his drawings 
materials, and continued a sketch he had begun the last day they had 
been there. Sydney looked over his shoulder, while Eustace took Ida 
away by the river, to show her a favourite haunt of his boyhood. 
After a time, Mrs. Gale returned, and sent out a servant in quest of 
them. They had luncheon with her, and heard the astonishing news 
that the Earl of Bathmoylan was coming to the castle. He was 
cruising about in his yacht, and intended running up the river for the 
purpose of seeing his ancestral home. Great preparations were being 
made for his arrival, and the housekeeper was in an intense state of 
excitement, though she did not expect him for a fortnight yet. The 
young people, after a time, turned their faces homeward, Eustace and 
Sydney discussing the advent of the earl in all its bearings and pos- 
sible effects. As the fonner lay down to rest that night, his last 
conscious thoughts were : ''A music teacher ! What a pity ! Not 
one to have a lark with, though. Ah ! " — with an impatient turn — 
** a fellow can't be always watching himself." 

The artist, having several sketches to complete, succeeded in turn- 
ing his three companions' footsteps towards Rathmoylan several timea 
during the following week. They did not much mind where they 
went, so they were together, and walking in the golden light. They 
were Arcadian days, love-lighted and beautiful. Life was an idyl, 
flowing onward in musical cadences ; and they looked neither to tJie 
past nor future, but enjoyed the vivid sweetness of the present. 
Sydney usually remained near L'Estrange, gathering ferns, wild 
flowers and waving grasses ; while Ida and Eustace roamed about, or 
sat at a little distance, having cue of their interminable arguments. 
What made the happiness of three of the party unalloyed was that they 
had not wakened to the consciousness of any sentimental danger, as pos- 
sibly resulting from such pleasant intercourse. They did not feel in 
the least romantic ; there were no palpitations or heart-burning^ and 

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The Monk's Prophecy. 707 

anything in the way of sentiment was discussed ^with extreme levily. 
Frank L'Estrange, on the contrary, had a tendency to introspection. 
He was quite well aware of his feelings, and so engrossed by them 
and the girl who had waked them, that, in the sublime selfishness of 
love, it never occurred to him that his sister's heart might be rather 
painfully impressed by the attractiye young man who lay laughing at 
her feet. 

The artist had made a fine sketch of Bathmoylan Castle, with the 
setting sun gilding its topmost turrets, and changing the hues of the 
river into crimson and gold. He determined to make a companion 
picture of the Druid's Altar, with the morning light upon it ; and at 
early dawn set forth alone through the fragrant woodland, to begin 
his sketch. 

He sat down in the necessary position, and worked busily for some 
hours, resolving to have it so far advanced that he could finish it at 
his leisure. He was whistling softly to himself the air of one of Ida's 
songs, " The Danube Eiver," and was so absorbed in his work that he 
did not hear footsteps behind him, treading gently on the soft sward. 
He was startled when a voice exclaimed, " That's it — ^you have just 
caught it" The artist looked up. " Pardon me, sir.; I have been 
watching you for some time. You have chosen a fine light for your 
picture, which is admirable." The speaker was a tall, elderly man, 
with piercing dark eyes, and black beard tinged with gray. 

The artist bowed. " There are glorious bits of scenery about here," 
he replied ; '* it is a pify not to show them to the world." 

'* Yes, it is a pity. I presume, sir, you are an amateur ; — ^perhaps a 
resident in the neighbourhood ?" 

" No," answered Frank ; '' I am a tourist, and an artist by pro- 
fession." 

'* I might have guessed it by your evident ability. An amateur is 
a humbug. If you want to excel in anything, make it your profes- 
sion ; put your strength in one current, and you'U overcome every 
obstacle. I hope you are not well off; — necessity is the spur to 
talent." 

^' I have the necessity, at all events," said Frank, with an amused 
smile ; '' I wish I could be as certain of the talent." 

" The talent is apparent, sir. I was wishing I had a painter to 
catch those soft lights as I came along. I must have the pleasure of 
knowing you." 

"My name is L'Estrange," said the artist, a suspicion of the 
stranger's identity rising in his mind, which was confirmed by his 
next words. 

" I like your work so well, Mr. L'Estrange, that I hope our first meet- 
ing won't be our last. I should wish to have a series of views taken of 
this old place. I did not tell you my name ; I am Lord Eathmpylan." 

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7o8 The MonKs Prophecy. 

The artist bowed, and apologised for his intrusion ; bnt the noble- 
man, with a gesture, put an end to his excuses, and expressed his 
pleasure at their fortunate meeting. 

He then carefully examined all the drawings in the portfolio, and, 
when he had finished, asked him could he meet him next daj, in the 
forenoon, that he might point out all those places he wished to hare 
sketched. 

The artist said he would be happy to do so, and, after a few 
moments' conyersation on art, which he seemed to appreciate tho- 
roughly, Lord Bathmoylan lifted his hat, and walked away through 
the forest. 

Frank remained looking in the direction he had gone, scarcely 
realising his sudden appearance and disappearance. Who knows but 
luck was in store for him ? This castied proprietor would be a 
powerful patron, if he happened to please him. Feeling a wonderful 
impetus given to his efforts, he returned to his sketch and worked 
diligently, sothathemighthayeitsomewhatadyancedtoshow to-morrow 
to Lord Rathmoylan. It was almost ten o'clock when an empty sen- 
sation reminded him that art and dreams are insufficient sustenance 
for mortal man« He gathered his materials, and proceeded homeward 
with elastic footsteps. When he reached the Hut, he found Sydney 
in the pleasure-grotind, plucking flowers. 

'' Will you give me my breakfast, Sydney? " he said, as he opened 
the little gate ; '' I'm starved. I have been in the forest si nce five 
o'clock, and have done a great morning's work. Whom do you think 
I met ? " he continued, when he had followed her indoors. *' No less 
a person than my Lord Hathmoylan." 

"Oh! Frank, why wasn't I with you?" exclaimed Ida. "It 
would be like a scene in a novel. Morning in a wood — lovely girl — 
nobleman in disgidse — first love, et cetera. What kind is he ? Had 
he his coronet on him ? Did he speak to you ?" 

** He spoke so much to the purpose, that I am going to visit him 
to-morrow at ten, Ida. What do you think of that P " He gave 
them an account of his interview, which caused general joy in 
the Hut. 

Next morning, at the appointed hour, L'Estrange presented himsfllf 
at Bathmoylan. He was ushered into the study, where the earl 
received him courteously. After a little time they went out and 
walked about the demesne, the earl pointing out the particular views 
he admired, and wished to have transferred to canvas. 

He and the artist soon understood each other, and on xetuming 
again to the study Lord Bathmoylan said — '* The commercial part of 
our business is aU that remains now, Mr. L'Estrange; and, as I 
am leaving to-morrow, I wish to arrange it. What will pay you for 
this oommisBion ?" 

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The MonKs Prophecy. 709 

"I really don't know, my lord," replied the artist, hesitatingly. 
" I have not got so large an order before, and — and " 

'* Will two hundred pounds be sufficient ? " said the earl. 

" Quite, my lord." 

The earl wrote a cheque for the amount, and handed it to the 
artist. " No thanks," he said ; " I like your style. I hope it won't 
be our last transaction. You can let me know when the pictures are 
ready. I am continuing my cruise ; but I intend returning to Ireland 
later on, when I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you. Good- 
morning, Mr. L'Estrange ; good-morning." He shook hands with the 
artist, who, most sincerely wishing him a pleasant journey, took his 
leave. 

Hardly believing in his sudden and most unexpected good fortune, 
Frank L*Estrange walked down the broad avenue, over which giant 
oaks flung their waving arms, straining the sunlight on the dark 
shadows beneath them ; the river murmured farther on ; the crows 
cawed on the tree-tops, the whirr of a pheasant was heard here and 
there, timid deer browsed in the open^glades, and the rabbit's white scut 
was visible, as they scampered across the avenue farther down. The 
artist's perceptions of the beautiful were always vivid ; but the face of 
nature never wore so magical a smile, so mystic an expression in his 
eyes as now, when he walked on with his two hundred pounds in his 
pocket. 

Two hundred pounds I — ^it was not much for many people, but a 
great sum for him. It meant everything : home, and love, and pros- 
perity, Sydney his wife, Ida relieved from teaching. If Lord Bath- 
moylan took him up, his fortune was secured ; — and he would deserve 
to be taken up— he would paint. Why, he felt now as if he had the 
power and insight of a Michael Angelo ; — he could paint the very sun. 

*' Here he is, Ida," called out Sydney, when he appeared at the 
bridge. '' I'll have the news flrst." She opened the little gate, and 
ran to meet him. '* What news P " she said* *' I was waiting for 
you." 

'' Waiting for me, were you, my lily maid ?" he answered, clasping 
both her hands so closely that she looked startled. ** I shouldn't like 
to keep you waiting." 

'' What news, Frank P " asked Ida, coming up breathless. '' Was 
he a King Midas ? Are you to do a picture for him ? " 

'< Behold 1 " said Frank, puUing the cheque out of his pocket-book. 
'^ Could there be a pleasanter proof ? " 

« Oh ! " exclaimed Ida. " Two hundred pounds ! " The tears 
sprang to her eyes, and her lips trembled. '< Oh ! thank God, Frank ; 
thank God. Come in till we tell mammy." 

The little lady lifted her hands when she heard the tidings, and 
the party were actually sobered by the depth of their joy. 

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7 1 o The Monk's Prophecy. 

Next day the artist went to the wood, again alone, as Father 
Moran had taken the two girls and Eustace out to the islands. He 
took sandwiches Miss White had prepared for him, and did not return 
till nearly seven o'clock. When he came to the bridge he saw the 
young people just beneath in a little boat, which Eustace was lanly 
propelling. 

" Oh ! there's Frank," exclaimed Ida. 

" I say, L'Estrange, come down and lend a hand, will you ? " 
called out Eustace. *' Tm worn out. 'Tis all a snare to say girls are 
ethereal beings. He who told such a cram never had to row two of 
them in a boat." 

"No, I won't go in," said Frank, leaning over the bridge. " I 
sat enough all day." 

" You couldn't induce Sydney to get out, could you P " asked 
Eustace, languidly. " The view up there would elevate her mind, 
and 'twould lighten the weight." 

"Yes, Sydney, come out and leave him there," answered the 
artist; "and someone wants you." 

"You can whistle for us when tea is ready, fair woman of the 
house," said Eustace, rowing to the shore* "You wouldn't mind 
taking the oars for a while, Miss L'Estrange, would you, and let me 
enjoy myself, just as an experiment, you know?" 

" No," answered Ida ; " I don't tolerate idleness in idlers. " I am 
indulgent only to those of my own mode of life." 

" Who wants me ? " asked Sydney, as the artist came to meet her. 
" I do," he answered ; " I want to talk to you, Sydney." ^ They 
stood leaning against the parapet of the bridge. The sun was sinking 
just below the horizon, filling the western heaven with unspeakable 
glory ; a half -moon of golden spears shot upward into the crimson 
sky, the masses of soft clouds were flushed with a thousand hues, the 
trees were burnished with the gilding rays, the little boat floated on 
in a sea of light, and the wide world lay as beautiful as in that divine 
hour when the all-holy Creator drew it forth from the great de^s o£ 
chaos, and saw that it was good. 

" Sydney," said the artist, taking the girl's hand, "we have only 
another week of this sweet time." 

" Shall I ever be so happy again ? " she answered. " What shall 
I do when I go away ?" 

"Don't go, then," he said, drawing her nearer to him; "stay 
with me." 

" With you ! " she repeated, looking up. 

" With me, my darling, to give me love for love, to be my cherished 
wife." 

She put out her hands with her old gesture. 
"Are you putting me away from you, Sydney?" he said. She 
made no answer, but stood trembling and blushing before hinujolc 



The MonKs Prophecy. 711 

"Listen to me, Sydney," lie went on. '• I don't want you to do 
anything but what you think will make ycm happiest. If you go to 
your friends, it is likely you will be well taken care of, and 'tis more 
than possible you will get a richer husband. I am but a poor fellow, 
but I have a prospect of getting on. If you care for me, stay with 
me. Whisper it to me, my white dove, what will you do ? " 

" I will stay with you, if you keep me," she answered. 

The artist forgot he had eaten no dinner, Sydney forgot all about 
tea, and it was only Miss White's appearance at the gate of the Hut 
that brought them back from that enchanted land, where hours are 
kept irregularly and earthly appetites remain dormant. 

That night they were aU made acquainted with the little passage 
that had taken place between Frank and Sydney. The latter was 
nervous and unhappy, until Ida clasped her in her arms. " Oh ! 
Ida," she said, clinging to her, " I was afraid you wouldn't like it ; — 
and what will Mrs. Huxton say ? " Miss White rejoiced from the 
very depths of her tender little heart. She loved the orphan girl, 
both for her own sake and because of that tendency which inclines us 
towards those whom we have served. She shrank from the idea of 
her passing away from her altogether. With the wisdom gathered 
by gleaners in unproductive fields — ^the wisdom of hard and patient 
experience — she looked with wistful and doubting eyes towards a 
future dependent on the bounty of friends that were not even bound 
by the laws of kinship ; but now she would have the protection of a 
husband, whose like she might seek in vain from Dan to Berseeba. 
Were not faith, love, and irreproachable conduct better than measures 
of gold ? She knew Frank L'Estrange since he was a little boy. 
They were worthy of each other, and suited to each other ; and it was 
truer, diviner wisdom for them to cleave one to another, struggling 
bravely through life's tortuous ways, than to lead a half-hearted 
existence with someone else, who might do away with all necessity 
for such a struggle. 

Eustace was astonished when he was made aware of the state of 
affairs. '' By Jove," he exclaimed, '' Sydney engaged to be married ! 
Who'd think of such a thing ? The little monkey I carried on my 
back the other day ! Why, I must be growing as old as the ever- 
lasting hills. What will Winnie say to such an appropriation of her 
charge ? And I feel like Othello— my occupation's gone." 

He had a conversation with Sydney, whose confusion he mimicked 
in a very heartless manner ; and quickly discovered that to her there 
was only one man in the world, and he was Frank L'Estrange. flow- 
ever, he congratulated her warmly, and told her, as she had not suffi- 
cient intelligence to perceive how much more worthy he was of 
adoration, he did not think she could have made a better choice. 
Sydney's happiness was not even shadowed by Mrs. Huxtpn's dia- 

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7 1 2 The Monk's Prophecy. 

pleasure. She wrote very kindly, and yet a little dig^nified withal, as 
if she wished her to have a proper sense of the honour of being allied 
to a L'Estrange. Father Moran thought it all a very sensible pro- 
ceeding, if they had common prudence, and did not rush into matrimony 
in too great a hurry. " A good, steady fellow," he said to Eustace ; 
" minds his business, and has brains. Maybe she might never da 
better. She has good looks, to be sure— but, faith, now-a-days, my 
boy, ye like money along with them ; and who knows but 'tis some 
irreligious blackguard she'd pick up with in foreign parts? I'd be 
very glad to see the little girl married to a man that would be good 
to her. Poor child I no wonder her heart clings to those friends of 
hers : they stood well to her, and they are good people, thoroughly 
good people." 

Everything was arranged— dependent, of course, on circumstanoe& 
The lovers were to wait for a year, and, if all went well, to como 
down to the Hut again, and be married quietly by Father Moran. 



CHAPTER XXTT, 

A LOVB THAT DOES WOT BUN SMOOTH. 

A CHANGE ha*d come over Eustace M'Mahon's dream, which had a 
very disturbing effect on the even tenor of that young gentleman'^ 
existence. Let him reason as he would about the illusive and transient 
nature of human emotion, and the tendency of young men and women 
to exaggerate their feelings, a word, a tone of Ida's caused a revolu- 
tion in his thoughts, and brought home the knowledge that the music 
teacher had, without any effort on her part, completely possessed her- 
self of his heart. 

It was a knowledge against which he struggled — a knowledge 
which awoke none of those delicious sensations which such self-reve- 
lations are supposed to produce. He loved her in spite of himself ^ 
he thoroughly appreciated the strength and tenderness of her nature, 
her nobility of thought, her fine intelligence, which rare combination 
of qualities, giving expression to her fair face and form, made her, to 
him, the most perfect woman he had met. But—a music-mistress ; 
going from house to house, earning her bread I — ^it was intolerable. 
What would the world and his ambitious sister say if he introduced 
her as his wife ? What would even his gentle sister Winnie think of 
such a marriage ? The young man grew restless, and was by turns 
in Paradise or Tophet — ^in wild spirits or in the depths of gloom. 
Every day he said he would leave, and every day he changed his 
mind : the mischief was done now — ^things could not be worse. He 
alternately wished he had never met her, and thanked Gk)d that he 
had; she had ''stirred his finer fancies," she had waked the desire 

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The Monk's Prophecy. 7 1 3 

for self-improyementy and made him a better man. Ah, if he only 
could make her his wife ! He was sure she was not indifferent to 
him ; but it was impossible. With lore, and self-pity, and pride strug- 
gling in his breast, Eustace bent his steps, as usual, towards the Hut 
a day or two after Sydney's engagement He found Ida sitting on 
the bank near the waterfall. 

"I am here," she said, ''like sister Anne, and I see nobody 
coming. The turtle-doves are gone down the glen, doing the pastoral." 

" I wonder what kind of turtle-dove would you make P " he re- 
plied, flinging himself beside her. 

*• There is too much of the eagle in me," she said. " I'd be likely 
to peck the eyes out of my companion. " 

"Ah! love is a humbug," he replied, impatiently. "Isn't that 
your belief ? " 

" A good deal of humbug passes for love," she said. They were 
silent for some time. 

" What are you thinking of ? " he asked at length. " What are 
your ideas on the great question ? Don't mock this time, for the sake 
of variety." 

" I'd like to empty my heart of creatures," she said, gazing 
absently down the glen, "and give it all to God if I could ; but I be- 
lieve in the beauty and imselflshness of earthly love, and its divine, 
power to sweeten the bitterness of life. It is the prophet's rod changing 
the waters of Marah." 

She was idly plucking the grass as she spoke. Eustace caught her 
hand and put it to his lips. 

" How dare you ! " she cried, passionately, pulling it away, as if 
he stung her. She stood up, her face quite pale. 

"Forgive me," he said; "I forgot mysell" . 

" I suppose I was becoming sentimental, Mr. M'Mahon, and you 
followed my lead." She walked away, and left him standing there, 
thinking that the most comfortable place he could find on this lower 
world was the bottom of the river. 

The young man's temper was tried considerably during the next few 
days. He could not get Ida to himself for one moment's conversation ; 
she avoided him with such tranquil self-possession that it was percep - 
tible to no one but him. She was gayer than ever, making them all 
laugh with her playful sallies. Eustace fancied she was unnaturally 
gay, and he took comfort from the possibility of her being as imhappy 
as he was. 

Father Moran came in one evening, and announced that he had 
had a letter from Mrs. Hassett, inquiring about Eustace, and begging 
of him to send him up at once. " Something nice in store for you, 
my boy," said the priest, laughing. "Fine heiress staying in the 
house, escort wanted for her. Mrs. Hassett has her wits a^out her. 

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7 1 4 The Monk's Prophecy. 

Well, I wish you luck, boy. Money is never any impediment to wed- 
lock ; but don't make it the motive. Marry with it if you like, but 
don't many for it." 

The holidays were at an end. Ida had to return to her pupils, 
and the last day of their stay at the Hut arrived. Eustace came from 
Castleishen soon after breakfast. Sydney told him he should stay all 
day, and have an early dinner with them, which he was only too glad 
to do. It was very unsatisfactory, though ; Ida was packing up, and, 
as moment after moment passed by, he became convinced more and 
more of the wisdom of Solomon, and the vexatious nature of all sub- 
lunary conditions of life. 

When dinner was over, Frank proposed they should have a last 
row on the river. 

" I will have a hot cake for tea," said Miss White. " Do not 
remain out later than seven ; Father Moran will be here then." 

They went away ; and in a short time the little boat shot out into 
the stream that led on to the Shannon. Eustace rowed silently ; the 
others joined their voices in the sweet old Canadian boat-song, sending 
the musical sounds across the lapping waters. 

In about an hour they returned, and reached the landing-place 
^again. Eustace stepped out, and gave his hand to Ida. 

"Gome, Sydney, you and I shall have a row for ourselves,'' said 
Frank, pushing out suddenly. <' Let them see if the cake be ready." 

Ida and Eustace stood looking after them for a few minutes. 

" You cannot avoid me now," he said, bitterly. 

**I do not want to avoid you," she replied. " Listen to Sidney's 
singing ; how sweet it sounds." 

*' I wish I had not listened to yours so often," he said; '' but it is 
the old story of the syren." 

" And shipwrecked mariners," she answered. " Hold on to your 
mast, and you will escape. I wickedly rejoice in the power of my 
voice : it brings me in a good many pounds a year — a thing not to be 
despised by one in my position." 

''You put your position often enough before my eyes," he said, 
gloomily. 

'' I do not want to put anything belonging to me before your eyes," 
she replied, quickly. '' My position does not concern you." 

" I wish it did not — ^but it does ; for I love you," he said. 

The girl's face grew pale ; she steadied her lips, and answered, 
lightly ** 'Tis a great confession from one who is mighty in the gates 
and can sit with senators of the land. Do you know to whom you 
make it ?" 

'' Yes ; I know it well ; but I cannot help loving you. I am ready 
to make any sacrifice to gain your love, to ^— ^" 

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The Monk's Prophecy. 7 1 5 

*' What Bacrifice would jou haye to make?" asked Ida. 

"My — my " Eustace paused, for at the moment he could 

not put one into tangible shape ; he was well 0% and independent of 
eyeryone. 

'' Your reputation for good taste and social wisdom/' Ida suggested. 
'' It is never wise for one so conscious of his sacrifice to make such a 
holocaust, Mr. M'Mahon ; he would be likely to repent of it ; — and no 
man shall sacrifice himself for me.'' 

" I do not know what you mean by sacrifice," said Eustace. " I 
am unfortunate in choosing my words. If you will listen to me " 

'^ I prefer speaking to listening," she answered. 

" I will make you listen to me," exclaimed Eustace ? *' Is this the 
way you treat me, after all the happy days. You knew I cared for 
you; you — you " 

**Mr. M*Mahon"— she stopped her rapid progress for a moment, 
and stood opposite to him— "let us understand each other. You 
have a kind of pride ; so have I. If you love me, as you say, it is in 
spite of yourself. You feel as if you were a modern King Oophetua ; 
and — ^I very much dislike the role of beggar-maid. Do you under- 
stand?" 

"Confound Cophetua!" said Eustace; "you'll drive me wild. 
Ida, I thought you cared for me ; I thought '* 

" You thought you had only to throw the handkerchief, I have no 
doubt," replied Ida. " Men, as a rule, take their success for granted. 
Gk> back to Mrs. Hassett, Mr. M'Mahon, and in a few months you will 
be thankful for your escape." 

" You will drive me to despair," he said. 

"A man in despair about me!" Ida laughed. "That would be 
something to boast of in my latter days; but I am sceptical about 
masculine despair. I knew a man who made the same declaration to 
a girl : he even wept. I saw him buying beefsteaks for his dinner a 
few hours after." 

"You are heartless,'* cried Eustace, passionately. "I was a fool 
ever to think of you." 

" I quite agree with you," she replied. She was walking rapidly 
all the time, and now sprang out on the road, near the bridge. " I 
hope the cake is turned." 

" You will listen to me yet," exclaimed Eustace. 
"Always when you choose agreeable topics," was the answer. She 
left him standing at the little gate, miserable, humbled, and more in 
love than ever. 

Sydney, Frank, and Father Moran came up to the Hut almost 
togetiier, where they found Eustace trying to soothe his feelings with 
a cigar. The cake was baked to perfection, and Miss White sat at the 
tea-table. 

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7 1 6 The Monks Prophecy. 

" Come, EustacOi my boy, cheer up ; there's money bid for you," 
fiaid Father Moran, laying down his cup. "This heiress of Carrie's 
seems to be weighing on your mind." 

<* I wonder is she pretty," said Sydney. 

" Have sense, child," answered Father Moran. " Beauty is very 
well in its way, but a girl may be good, and not at all handsome. I 
ought to give him the advice Father Cusack used to give to his young 
men : ' Don't be turning up your nose at a good match, boys, because 
the girl is not a beauty, except, you know, that she is too ugly.' " 

" Ah, money is the thing, Father," said Ida, laughingly. " How 
reverently a man will bend the knee to her who has a thousand a 
year." 

'' Women are far more mercenary than men," exclaimed Eustace. 
" Men will marry whom they like, if they can." 

" I think I must side against you, Miss Ida," said Father Moran. 
<* In such ways men are the more generous of the two. A woman is 
far more inclined to remember she brought her husband a fortune, 
than a man is to advert to the fact that she brought him none. Pru- 
dence is the great thing to look to in marriages — prudence and common 
sense." 

'' You don't like a man to many a nigger, and beat her afterwards 
for being black," said Ida. 

Next morning. Father Moran and Eustace drove with them to the 
clifP. The little boat was rocking on the wavelets. The steamer was 
to be heard panting in the distance : its smoke was curling above the 
next turn in the river. Adieux were said. " I shall see you in Dub- 
lin," said Eustace, as he helped Ida into the boat. " I have no time 
for visitors," was her answer. A moment more they were standing on 
the steamer, waving their handkerchiefs to the friends on shore. 

Their return to the Almshouse caused immense excitement, the 
inmates intercourse with travelled personages being limited in their 
latter days, Mrs. Huxton kept her neighbours well informed as to 
the young people's movements in the countiy ; but as she was remark- 
able for a florid method of expression when recounting circumstanoes 
connected with the family fortunes, her disclosures were listened to 
with questioning faith. 

'' I don't believe a word about Frank's meeting a lord," said Mrs. 
M'Closky. '^ One would think he started him out of a furze-buah. 
Mrs. Huxton is cracked about quality. I only hope it is true about 
the money : the poor boy would want it. But time wiU tell." 

Mrs. Huxton received the party with open arms ; the uneasineas 
lingering in Sydney's heart melted away in her cordial embrace. 
Mrs. Barry and Jim were in the kitchen to welcome them; and for an 
hour they were all busy unpacking a large hamper of countxy produce, 
which was equally divided among the inmates of the Almshouse. 



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( 717 ) 



O'CONNELL: 

HIS DIABT FROM 1 792 TO lB02, AND LETTEBS. 
2V0W TOK THE TIBST TIIU FUBU8HSO. 

Pabt vn. 

MOBE OF HIS LETTERS. 

After the famous Clare Election, O'Connell, before taMng bis seat in 
Parliament, used unsparingly his parliamentary privilege of franking 
letters. Here is one of his £rst as a Member of Parliament. 

« Ennit, 6tk July, 1828. 
'* Mt diae 'FajESD, 

** The coyer of this will announce to you a cheering fact It is that there ii 
in Parliament a man, one of whose greatest consolations^ in life is that he can truly 
call himself 

" Your attached and sincere friend, 

" Danieii 0*CoinraLL, 
" [Franked.] 

"No. I. EnnU, 6th July, IB2B. 

'* Cornelius Mac Loohlbn, Esq^ 
** Merchant, Dublin, 
" Dakiel O'Connzll." 

The following passage refers to the same epoch. Mark O'Connell's 
prudence in forbidding a Catholic illumination. 

" It is rumoured that the Catholics of Dublin intend a grand illumination. Exert 
yourself to prevent any demonstration of that kind or anything that could possibly 
degenerate into a riot. The Bill is to get the Boyal Assent at four o'clock on Monday. 
You will go to bed that night a free man ; the term Protestant ascendancy is now only a 
name. Blessed be the great Ood ! you cannot think how my heart swells at the thought. 
Let me repeat the caution not to illuminate ; it would only give an excuse to a bygone 
faction to stain Emancipation with blood. I am sure the report of an intended illu- 
mination is unfounded; it would be so unwise to proToke an attack by the desperate 
and defeated Orange faction." 

Without interposing eren the thinnest layer of commentary we may 
give in order the following letters from the faithful wife at home to 
the new M.P., after one from the Member himself. 

** Bait's Hotel, Dovbr-stbext, 
" lOth February, 1829. 

"Mt DARLIN9 LOTE, 

*' Here I am after a long and in some instances a troublesome journey. We 
had some selfish persons of our party who were rery particular in taking care of them- 
selTes. This, of course, was not pleasant, but that is all over ; and here we are^ quite 
well and merry. I am happy to tell you that prospects seem more faTourable than 
we expected. I saw Sir Henry Pamell, who kindly called on me the moment we 



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7i8 aConnell. 

arrired. Hib name is not to get into the newipapera, but he tells me that there is to 
be no Veto; nor any attack or interference with the discipline of the Ostholic 
Church. This, darling, is important if true, as the Americans say. I hare my hopes 
that it is so. 

** With respect to taking my seat, I hare not as yet determined upon the time of 
taking it ; tha( must be determined to-morrow or tiie day after by my professional 
friends, and the adrioe of the persons who in Parliament shall be found honest enough to 
support me. I shall, howeTer, write to you eTery day, and gire yon, sweetest, full 
details. You will not state the names of the persons who may gire me informatiun, 
because the newspapers are so ready to catch up any and eyerything, that it is not 
safe to mention names to anybody. I know, sweetest, your caution, and I hare only 
to tell you the reason of anything and it is not necessaiy for me afterwards to gite 
you any adrice. 

*' Darling, whaterer becomes of my claims, or of those of my country, you are 
my consolation and my solace. Your state of health is my great and foremost source 
of anxiety. Take care of yourself for me, my lore — my early love — my only lore. 
Embrace for me our darling children— my Eat<*, whom I shall call the tenderness of 
my heart — my own loved Betsy, my darling John, and my boy, our pride, my Dan. 
It is honey to my heart to think of each of them individually. 
" Ever, sweetest, 

** Your fondest and most faithful, 

"Da»iel 0*Cojwbll." 

**Wi March, IS29. . 
" Mt own dablino Lots, 

« We have been discussing a Petition all day. I have only time to tell yon 
that I got three letters from you this day, so that I scolded you /or nothing yesterday. 
I don*t know in what post-office the blame may attach — no matter. I am quite wdl, 
and very merry. Maurice is equally so. I have not, and will not, now abandon the 
Forty- Shilling Freeholders. 

*'A thousand and a thousand loves to our children. 

'* Believe me always, sweetest love, 

" Yours roost tenderly, 

•* Daxiel O'Cohnill." 

*• BURT-STSEST, 

'*lSthJprU,ie29. 
" Mt own darling BIart, 

<* In the first place, are you not glad that the Lent is over ? I am quite sure 
that I am, although I have not suffered at all from it ; on the contrary, I am grown^ 
quite corpulent. In the next place, darling, I have still no news, but my next letter 
will, I hope, contain some of importance. My Parliamentary fate must be decided 
by that day one way or the other ; I think favourably, but at all events I will know 
distinctly before I write to you on Monday. 

'* Tell my sweet Eate that I got her darling letter with yours, and that I thank 
her for it with all the fondness of the fondest father*B heart for the sweetest and 
dearest child that ever a father was blessed with. She little knows how I doat on h^. 
I am glad you have got my poor Danny back at the whist-table ; beliere me, love, it 
is much to be apprehended that the late hours he keeps affect his constitution and 
make him more liable to disease than he would naturally be. Speak to him on this 
subject, and get him to go to bed earlier, 

" What a state of tranquillity we are arrived at after so long and so violent a 
contest. I wish, darling, I was at home with my family ; it is only with my family that 



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0*ConnelL 7191 

I faaow anythinsf of the happiness of human life — my own darling Mafj and her 
children, and sweet, sweet little Mam/ — ^what a darling she is: give them all my 
kindest lore. Is Maurice doing anything? I wrote to John as you wished. I hope 
Qod may be pleased to gi?e him the grace to attend to what I have written to him« 
" Good-bye, sweetest — may God bless you. 
" Bver yours most fondly, 

" Danxbl O'Cohhbll." 

<* Meeriov-bquarSi 

** Wednesday morning ^ 10 o^eloek, 

(Post-mark, 17th March, 1830.) 

<* Mt DEABE8T LOVB, 

*' I fancy that I am looking at you just going out to Mass, with the largest 
shamrock that could be had in London, looking as independent as if you were already 
Prime Minister of England. I wish I could think our dear Maurice was well enough 
to accompany you to fulfil the solemn duty which you nerer forget Darling, you 
haT« brought a blessing upon yourself and your family, and your example has done 
more for the Catholic Church than e^er was done by a layman at any period* Hay 
the great Gt}d preserve you to me and spare our children to us. 

" I write to you before I leave my room, to have my letter ready to dose and take 
with me on my way to Mass. I hope before I go out to hear f i:om you. You may 
easily judge, darling, how anxiously impatient I must be to get your letter of Monday 
last. Yesterday was one of the most anxious and nerrous days I ever passed. I am, 
howeyer, thank God, in the best health, and our children Teiy well. The girls, 
Morgan, Fitzsimon, and Ellen go to the Patrick's Ball this evening. The weather is 
most cruelly severe. It is well I have the good sense not to go to the Castle. Going 
out by day and going out by night are very different to those who are apt to take cold 
aa I am. I don't like, heart, you should venture over in any of the Holyhead 
packets ; they are, I hear, very unsafe. Why not come by Liverpool ? 

** Your darling little Mary is quite well ; so is 0*Connell ; but I don't think he 
will ever be as interesting a child as Mary — probably I may be too partial to her. 

** I must close and seal my letter, as it is time to be off for Mass. No English 
Post as yet. With fond love from your children, 

" Believe me ever yours, 

"Mart O'Coitnell. 
" P.S.~Give my kindest love to our dear Maurice. Good-bye, sweetest, dearest love. 
" To Danisl O'Coknsll, Esq., M.P., 
" 5 MaddoX'Sireei, 

** lUffent-street, London.** 

"BSEWSTEBFIELD, 

** July the 2Uh, 
(Post-mark, 27th July, 1830.) 
'* Mt darling Lotb, 

'* This is the eight-and-twentieth anniversary of our wedding day— the day of 
the week, too— which to me was the domraenoement of a happiness that through 
your fault was, and never will be decreased. I have been the happiest of women 
since I first knew you ; and I feel that if you don't love me more, you do not now, in 
my old age, love me less. And, oh, darling, how dear, how very dear are you to my 
fond and grateful heart ! May God bless and protect you, and send us a happy 
meeting. I am, thank God, much better ; but they will not let me leave here unti 
Monday next. 

** Your girls and Morgan are quite well. I have not heard from any of my other 
Vol. X. No. 113. 45^ ^ 

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720 C/ConnelL 

boyi nnoe I came here. I heard from ICaurice. I hope to hear from you this post. 
I write in great haste, as the Post-boy is waiting. With fond lore from your children* 
belieye me, darling ever yours truly, 

"Habt O'COKirSLL. 

"Danisl OTovhsll, V.P., 

" Waterf&rdr 

It Has always been well known thai the highest prizes at the dis- 
posal of the Ooyemment might have been 0*Connell*6 if he had con- 
sented to give np the popular cause. Here is the way in which his 
domestic oounseUois sustained him in rejecting one of these tempta- 
tions — 

" MBRRlOff-SQUARK, 

*• Wednesday. 
(Post-mark, 3rd December, 1830.) 

'* Mr DIABI8T LOYI, 

'* Thank God you have acted like yourself, and your wife and children hare 
more reason to be prouder of you now than they erer were. Had you acted differ- 
ently from what you hare done it would hare broken my heart. You cannot abandon 
the people who have always stood by you, and for whom you haTS sacrificed so much. 
You will, darling, be rewarded for all, and you will haye the prayers and the blessings 
of your country to cheer and console you for what you haye given up. Had you 
been betrayed into an acceptance of the terms offered by €k>Temment, you would die 
of a broken heart before six months expired. You now stand firmly on the affections 
and on the love of your countrymen, and when that country is aware of the tpUndid 
hoerifce you haye mode for them, depend upon it they will strain every nerre to 
reward you. I shall hold up my head higher than ever 1 did. I shan*t be afraid to 
look at the people, as I certainly should if you were a titled pensioner of the Gorem- 
ment. For your children I shan't say a word, as they gire you their sentiments 
with their respective signatures attached. I never saw anyUiing like the pleasuro 
that danced in their eyes when assured of your refusal. May Gbd bleas you, my 
own love ! Words are inadequate to tell you how I love and respect you for this 
late act, so like and so worthy of yourself ; my heart overflows with gratitude and 
pride for being the wife of such a man, and the mother of such grateful children. 

"The report through town yesterday and this day is that you are to be the new 
Master of the Bolls. You may rely on our discretion, though we long to have the 
great news public. What a welcome you will get from the people of Ireland ! May 
GK>d bless and protect you. You will cany the Bepeal of the Union without blood* 
shed, as you did the Emancipation. I put my trust in that GK>d who sees and knows 
the purity of your heart. I can't write more here, there are so many in and out. 
With love from your children, believe me always with truth your fondest and most 
grateful 

''Mart O'Convell. 
** To Baitizl O'CoimiLL, M.P., 
*« 14 MamohnUr BuUdinffi, 

*< WeriminsUr, London." 

" MSRBI05-SQUARE, 

''Strnday. 
(Post-mark, 8th December, 1830.) 
"Mt dsabbst Lots, 

*' It is now half-past eleven o'clock, and I sit down to answer your letter of 
Friday, which I found in my napkin when I came to breakfast this morning. Man- 



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O'ConnelL 721 

rice placed it there to gire me an agreeable surprise All our children quis me not a 
little upon the regularity of your letters : I suppose they are surprised you should 
think to much of a little old woman as to write to her erery post. It is a doubt to 
me, howerer, if even Shiel, who has got so much by his loTely wife, is as much 
attached to her as my darling old man is to his fond and grateful old woman. 
I judged your children's letters would gire you great comfort ; accordingly, when 
ih^y wished me to giye you their sentiments, I suggested to them the plan, 
which they with great cheerfulness adopted. Maurice, without waiting to discuss 
the subject, went at once to his study and wrote the letter which you so much, 
and I think so justly, appreciate. Bely on it, loye, your secret is safe with us; 
not to your sister did I breathe it. I hope it will be public ; if it should not how can 
the people be aware of the sacrifice you hare so noUy made for them ? I trust I 
may look forward to the certainty of seeing you at Christmas, they will be all so 
anxious to spend the Christmas with their family that both Houses will probably 
close before that period. Are we to hare Lord Anglesey ? I hope not, if he comes 
to continue his opposition to the Repeal of the Union. Bwyer will, I suppose, give 
you an account of the reception gifen by the Lord Mayor to the Deputation yesterday ; 
his speech was most impertinent^ and he deserres to be well humbled. How glad I 
am I did not risit the Lady Mayoress. I waited to know how he would act after his 
return from London. His head has been turned by the compliments there paid to 
bim, and he forgets that he was once one of the people, and glad to have their 
support. 

'* Nothing new in Dublin. We are all quite well As Tuesday will be a blank, 
I hare promised to go to Clongowes on that day. 

*' With lore from all your children, beliere me^ my dearest Dan, 

** Your's most truly, 

" Mart O'Connsll. 
•* To DiirisL O'CowKBLL, M.P., 
<* 14 Manehegter BuUdinff$, 

** Weitmimter, London.*' 

In these letters Mrs. O^Oonnell says tlie romoiir was that 0*CoiineIl 
was to be Master of the Bolls. As she fears the " splendid sacrifice " 
will not be appreciated if secrecy is observed, the offer must have been 
higher. Had it been proposed to confer on O'Connell a distinction 
which wasy in reality, to be reserved for Lord O'Hagan, and which at 
that time would have seemed a more extraordinaxy honour ? To what 
extent would the subsequent course of Ireland's political history have 
been modified if O'Connell had become her first Catholic Lord 
Chancellor P 



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( 722 ) 



THE NIGHTINGALES. 

JUNE roses ripen through the land, 
All red and white and paly gold ; 
Green shadows veil them where they stand. 

Their breathing scents the sunlit wold. 
The roses glow, but what avails ? — 
I do not hear the nightingales. 

The woods lie under some sweet spell, 
Their mossy lanes are dim with light, 

Ensilvered is the marble well, 

Deep summer walketh through the night : 

Walketh awake ; yet something ails 

My soul ; I want the nightingales. 

Soft summer night, fair summer day, 
Of leaping light, of dreamful shade. 

Who that hath lived through you shall say 
Which for the fuller bliss was made ? 

Yet aches my heart ; my spirit fails — 

May, give back the nightingales ! 



E.M. 



DB VEEFS LEGENDS OF IRELAND'S HEROIC AGE.* 

SOME three or four centuries before the Christian era — ^f or Irish 
histoiy, especially of the Heroic Age, refuses to be trammelled by 
exact chronology — ^Ugain^ Mor, a descendant of Heremon, ruled the 
destinies of our island. He was a great prince, as his name implies ; 
and BO much reverenced by his subjects that they swore by the sun, 
moon, and stars the sovereignity of Ireland should remain with hia 
children for ever. Strange as it may appear, the promise was kept for 
close upon three hundred years, until Eochy Feliah slew Fathna the 
Wise, and restored the Pentarchy. Fathna was mourned, at least for 
a time, by a young and beautiful wife, best known to us through her 
and Fathna's child, the famous Conor MacNessa. Her grief, however, 

« « The Foray of Queen Meaye, and other Legends of Ireland's Heroic Age.** Bj 
Aubrey de Vere. (London : Kegan Paul, Trench & Co. 1882). 

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De Ver^s Legends of IrelatuPs Heroic Age. 723 

was not fated to be lasting ; for in due time she was wooed and won by 
Fergus MacEoy, the King of Ulster; while she seems to have brought up 
her son in a spirit of almost more than Christian charity, since he asked 
and obtained as a bride Maey or Meaye, the daughter of his father's 
murderer. It had been stipulated between Nessa and Fergus that the 
latter should 

" On the judgment seat permit ■ 

Conor I7 his side to sit, 

That by use the jouth may draw 

Needful knowledge of the Law "— 

(Lay« of the Western Oael) 

and Conor before long supplanted his stepfather in the hearts of the 
Ultonians ; so that Fergus saw himself forced to resign the crown, and 
leave his youthful rival to govern alone. But domestic troubles appear 
to have soon clouded the happiness which undivided power should 
have brought to Conor Mao Nessa ; for we find his lately wedded bride 
first returning to her father, the Ard-Bigh of the island, and then be- 
stowed by him upon Tinne, King of Connaught, one of the provincial 
sovereigns he had appointed when dismembering Fathna's monarchy. 
On the plain of Aie, in the present county of Bosoommon, Meave and 
her new husband raised a mighty fort or rath, which was called Crua- 
ohan, after the queen's mother. Here Meave fixed her residence, and 
after Tinners death ruled alone over the Gonnacians for a period of 
about ten years, until she married Ailill, a petty prince of Leinster ; 
and here we majr leave her for the present, to take up again, this time 
under Mr. deYere's guidance, the story of her discarded husband, 
Oonor Mac Nessa. 

"We already owe much to Mr. Aubrey de Vere for his poetic 
illustrations of Irish History. '' Inisfail " dealt with *' those six cen- 
turies between the Norman Invasion and the repeal of the Penal Laws, 
in the latter half of the eighteenth century;" ''the Legends of St. 
Patrick," deal with Ireland's saintly time ; and now, " The Foray of 
Queen Meave, and other Legends of Ireland's Heroic Age," takes us 
back to the period which preceded even the introduction of Christia- 
nity. Of the three poems which make up this volume the first in order 
of place, though not of time, is entitled " The Sons of ITsnach," and 
opens with a banquet scene '* in Felim's house " — 

" Chief minstrel he to Conor, Uladh's* lord. 
Who graced that day, aa oft, his fayourite's board.'* 

While the banquet is progressing a child is bom to Felim ; and, in 
due course, the cradle, "bowered in silk, and blossom strewn," is 
carried into the hall. Deirdr6 — ^for this is the name bestowed upon the 

• Ulster. 

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724 De Vere's Legends of Ireland's Heroic Age. 

minstrers cliild— is thus depicted by Mr. de Vere, in what i^pean to 
us the two best stanzas of '' The Sons of Usnach." 

« Therein a little nunden wondtr laj 

Unlike all babet bettdei in mien and Iuib^ 
Bright as a lilj bud at break of day 

That flashes through the night's unlif ted dew : 
Beaming her eyes, like planets glad and fair ; 
And o*er her forehead cunred a fringe of hair. 

" The tender fairy hand, whose substance fine 
Glimmered as of compacted moonbeams made. 
With such a stealthy smoothness did it shine, 

AboTe the coTerlet unquiet strayed ; 
And some one said, * It knows the things to be, 
And seeks its wand of destined empery !* " — (p. 2). 

It is unfortunate that the exigencies of historical truth should have 
appeared to call for the last line of the first stanza $ as a newlj-bom 
babe, with forehead fringed with hair, presents such an unusual image 
to the'mind as to diminish greatly the pleasure which should arise from 
Mr. de Yere's beautiful word-painting. 

"We must pass very briefly over the earlier portions of the poem : 
over the fatal prophecy which Cathbad, the blind old druid, pronounced 
upon the infant ; over her childhood, spent, by Conor's order, in an 
island home, where her only visitors were the king himself, who des- 
tined her to be his bride, and her druid teacher ; and over the tales, 
sometimes a little tiresome, by which teacher and nurse endeavoured 
to beguile away the tedious hours. At last she hears from Levarcam, 
the nurse, of the three brothers, sons of TJsnach, Naisi, Ardan and 
Ainl^, and 

•* * Naisi,' she said, • will Ioto me ! who cares when Y "—(p. 17). 

Then Naisi and Deirdr6 meet, and Naisi carries off the island 
flower, which was to have bloomed for Conor only. They withdraw to 
Scotland, flying from Conor's anger, accompanied by Ardan and Ainl^, 
and maidens and warriors of Clan Usnaeh. But their absence is soon 
sorely felt in Ulster, where the sons of TJsnach were amongst the 
bravest of the Bed Branch Knights ; and Conor takes advantage of a 
w ide-spread feeling in their favour to bring about their destruction. 
He knew that as they sailed away, 

"'Exiles,' they swore, 'we go: but ne'er come back 
Till sureties strong are ours, and guarantee 
By Conor sent, firm pledge of endless troth;'/' — (p. S5). 

and that ConalCamach, Cuchtdlain, or Fergus Mac Boy should be the 
messenger. The two former are appealed to by the king, in turn, but 
they suspect the treacheiy, and refuse to become parties to it. Fergus 



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De Veris Legends of Ireland's Heroic Age. 725 

is deceived, and sets out in search of the exiles. He lands on the 
shores of Loch Etive, and his hunting orj is soon heard by Naisi and 
Deirdx^. 

" Deirdr6 and he were playing ohen together ; 

Their bent heads well nigh met aboye the board ; 
While Bunny gleams of that undouded weather 

Glancing through boughs the chequered iTory scored. 
Her brow was bright with thought, her hand, raised bigh, 
AboTe its destined prize hung hoTeringly.*' — (p. 39). 

From this point the poem is really interesting ; and if we except 
Deirdre's lament on losing sight of Scotland, the action hastens swiftly 
on to the catastrophe, and the trammels of rhyme lead to scarcely a 
weak verse. 

Deirdr^ first recognises Fergus' cry and strives to avert the fulfil- 
ment of Cathbad's prophecy ; for when Naisi catches in it an echo from 
Erin, 

"Play on! 
She laughed ; but from her cheek the rose was gone. 
Once more abroad the cry of Fergus pealed ; 



Then Deirdr6 .... 

.••••••a 

< Play on !' and on her heart she pressed hor hand. 
But when a third time rang that shout . • . 

Then Deirdr6 said, <I knew that earliest cry!' 

This day the Destiny foretold b^inneth : 
Woe to the Three l"--{p. 40). 

We cannot copy the whole'poem here, and we are unwilling to give 
a false idea of it by mutilated passages. It will amply repay a care- 
ful perusal; and will afford convincing proof of the high poetic 
culture to which our ancestors had attained. For Mr. de Yere is 
singularly faithful to the spirit of the old Irish original, and in almost 
the only instance where he departs from it, the result is a very marked 
improvement. Deirdr6, in the Irish legend, has a prophetic dread of 
the evils in store for the sons of Usnach ; but her foreknowledge has a 
weakening effect upon her character, and sometimes she appears to 
think the spell of destiny may still be broken. At one moment she is 
full of fears, sad and trembling ; at another she encourages Naisi to 
do battle bravely, as safety is still within their grasp. Mr. de Yere*s 
heroine is of far nobler, though perhaps less human mould. At the 
moment that Naisi accepted the invitation to returuy 

<* Then Deirdrtf inly said, * We go to die:'; 
Death pale she stood, yet spake no further word ;*' 

and her certainty of the fate in store for them never after wavers. She 

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726 De Ver^s Legends 0/ Ireland's Heroic Age. 

endeayourBy indeed, to delay the fatal moment ; but with such alight 
insistance as to show that no false hope moves her ; and when her 
warning advice is put aside a second time, 

•« Thenceforth waa BeirdrS ohanged. . . . 

Indifferent, yea, as one with either fate 
Alike content 

she goes forward to her doom. The old Greek conception of destiny 
was never more finely realised than in Mr. de Yere's creation. She is 
the Cassandra of the clan of TJsnach, but without the raving and the 
rant of the prophetess of Troy. 

We shall not tell' how Fergus was prevented from accompanying 
the returned exiles to King Conor's court; how an excuse was sought 
and found for attacking them in the palace of the Red-Branch Elnights ; 
how great deeds of slaughter were done by Buini and Ulan, Fergus* 
sons ; and how, at last, of all the clan of IJsnach Deirdr6 alone is left 
to sing the funeral dirge. But we cannot refrain from quoting some 
few lines, though one or two among them appear not worthy of their 
fellows, in which Naisi and Deirdr6 embrace before the final struggle. 

" . . . In neither face that hour waa fear : 
She saw in his a sadness infinite : 

He saw in hers content and princely cheer. 
At last she spake ; . • , 

*' O Lore, not thus upon that causeway old 

We stood that day, chaunting our nuptials high 
Yet nothing is that was not then foretold — 

Hast thou not happy been ? more happy I, 
That hour thy love ; for three glad years thy bride ; 
That ran, and slept and wakened at thy side ! 

"The good must still the auspice be of good ; 

They nerer loTed who dream that Lore can die ! 
In lordlier strength, in happier sanctitude, 

Be sure he waits us in some realm more high. 
All thanks, thou Power Unknown! she spake and kissed 
With all her young bright face her husband's breast--(p. 61). 

The heroes die ; Deirdr6 chants their lament — ^it is heavy and pas- 
sionless — and then falls lifeless into their open grave. Fergus, freed 
at length from the snares which Conor had twined round him, arrives 
at Eman only to find those to whom his troth was plighted treacher- 
ously slain ; and with his vengeance on king and people Mr. de Yere 
condudes the poem. 

We know, however, that Fergus, accompanied by Cormac Cbnlin- 
glas, Conor's son, and by three thousand warriors of TTladh, with* 
drew from the kingdom polluted by such treachery, and retired to 
the court of Queen Meave. This brings us to Mr. de Vere's third 
-^nem, from which the title of the whole book is taken. Queen Meave, 



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De Ver^s Legends of Ireland* s Heroic Age, 727 

as we have said, had finally espoused a Leinster prince named Ailill, 
and from " a pillow conversatdon," as the Irish annals style it, between 
the royal consorts, dates the origin of the " Tain B6 Chuailgne." We 
need not enter' into the grounds of quarrel between Connaught and 
Ulster, though it was certainly less founded then than it has been 
often since ; we shall take up the story where Mr. de Yere pictures 
Queen Meave, surrounded by her allies from south, east, and west, and 
aided by the Ulster exiles,* under Fergus Boy, setting out upon her 
northward march. We could wish to quote largely from the " Foray 
of Queen Meave ;" the interest is heightened as the narrative proceeds ; 
no weak disssensions distract and annoy the reader, and Uie blank 
Terse, of which Mr. de Yere is such a master, and which, we regret, he 
did not employ in the '^ Sons of Usnach," is admirably suited to the 
epic grandeur of the subject. 

Meave fixed her camp in the plains of Aie ; and endeavoured, first 
of all, to make peace between the various clans whom a common hatred 
was uniting against Ulster. Prophet and seer were sent abroad, 

** Who ceased not, daj or nigbt, for fifteen dajs 
From warnings to the people, ' Be je one ;' 
Yet one the people were not." 

But Ulster was united as one man ; and the queen's hope of vic- 
tory rests, at last, only upon magic aid, for Faythleen, the witch of 
Moytura, promises her help, and 

«... Then from ocean's breast there rose 
A mist, no larger than a dead man's shroud, 
That, slow] J widening, spread o'er Uladh's realm 
Mantle of darkness, and an erring mind, 
And powerlessness and shame.'* — (p. 129). 

Meanwhile the invading hosts, after crossing the Shannon at Ath- 
coltna, moved onward through Longford, Leitrim, and Westmeath, 
until they reached the boundaries of TJlster. Here they are first met 
by the hero of the tale, CuchuUain.f Cuchullain was prince of a 
small kingdom around Diin Dalgan (Dundalk), and had been reared 
at the court of Ulster ; for his mother, Dectire, was sister of Conor 
MacNeesa. He was early knighted by Conor ; and now that his uncle's 
kingdom was in danger, he determined to defend it as best he might. 
He first bids his father 

'' Haste to Emania ! Bid the Bed Branch knights 
A ttend me in Murthemn^. I till then 
Hang on the invader's flank, a fiery scourge ;" 

* It is singular that Mr. de Vere makes Fergus slay <* Maini, King Conor's last 
surviring son," at p. 69, and now at p. 125 sets by Fergus' side, *' Cormao Conlinglas, 
King Connor's bravest son." 

t For an account of Cuchullain's childhood, see M. C. Ferguson's *^ Irish before 
the Conquest," pp. 48 and sqq. ; for a brief study of his character, see Mr. de Vere's 
preface to the present volume* p. ix. (^ \ 

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728 De Vtre's Legends 0/ IrelafuP 5 Heroic Age. 

and then be sets himself to the task of catting off with arrow and with. 
sling the chiefs of the Connacian army. First he ciphers his name on an 
osier wreath in Ogham characters, and lays it on a warrior's grave 
in the path of the advancing enemy f 

*' * For thus, he aaid ; ' on no man iminrmrefl 
FaU I, but warned.' " 

Fergus alone can interpret the mysterious signs ; and at the even- 
ing banquet Cucbullain's story is told by Conlinglas, King Conor's 
son. Queen Meave, forewarned by Fay thleen of the part Cuchullain is 
to bear in the defence of Uladh, is angered at his praises : 

" Stem of brow 
The queen arose : ' Bnough of fables, lords \ 
Drink to the victoiy ! Ere yon moon is dead 
We knock at gates of Eman.' High she held 
The crimson goblet. Instant, felt ere beard, 
Vibration strange troubled the midnight air ; 
A long-drawn bias overran it : then a cry, 
Death-cry of warrior wounded to the death. 
They roee : they gazed around : upon a rock 
Cuchullain stood. The warrior said in heart, 
' I will not slay her ; yet her pride shall die V 
Again that hiss : instant the golden crown 
Fell from her head ! In anger round she glared : 
Once more that hiss long-drawn, and in her hand 
The goblet shivered stood ! She cast it down ; 
She cried : ' Since first I sat, a queen new-crowned, 
Never such ignominy, or spleen of scorn 
Hath mocked my greatness!' "^p. 135). 

Again Cuchullain sets up his warning inscription, and again Fergos 
alone^deciphers it aright : 

" Fergus knew the man, 
Fergus alone ; nor yet divulged his name. 
Oft muttering, ' These be men who fight for Bulls — 
I war to shake a Perjurer from his throne. 
And count no brave man foe.' " — Cp* 138). 

" Orloff, Meave's son," leads on the van : — 

•* That morning he had wed 
A maid, the loveliest in his mother's court, 
And yearned to prove his valour in her eyes. 
Sudden he came to where Cuchullain stood 
Pasturing his steeds with grass and flower forth held 
In wooing, dallying hand. Cuchullain said : 
' The queen's son this ! I will not harm the youth,' 
And waved him to depart. That stripling turned. 
Yet turning, hurled his javelin. As it flew 
The swift one caught it ; poised it ; hurled it home : 
It pierced that youth from back to breast ; he fell 
J>ead on the chariot's floor. The steeds rushed on 



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De Vere*5 Legends of Ireland^ s Heroic Age. 729 

Windswift, and reached the camp. There sat the queen, 
Throned in her car, listening the host's applause : 
In swoon she fell, and lay as lie the dead."— (p. 187). 

« • • « « 

Thus erer day by day; and night by mght^ 
Through strength of him that 'mid the royal host 
Passed, and re-passed like thought, the bravest fell ; 
For ne'er against the inglorious or the small 
That warrior raised his hand." — (p. 143). 

Meanwliile Eergus has whispered to Queen Keave, 

" The Hound of Uladh is your visitant 
Both day and night," 

and himself is deputed by Ailill and the " Kings confederate " to buy 
off Cuchullain from the defence of Ulster. He forewarns the chiefs 
of the result of their embassy — " Sue and be refused ! that great one 
loves his country ;" but still he goes at their behest, and 

" Banquet o'er, 
Fergus his errand showed, and named the gifts 
By Ailill sent, and Meaye. Cuchullain rose 
And curtly answered : ' Kerer will I break 
My TOW ; nor wrong the land ; nor sell my king :' 
Fergus too royal was to hear surprised, 
Or grieved, his friend's resolve, nor touched again 
Upon that pact unworthy."— (p. 145). 

He returns to the invader's camp, and after slaying a chief, who 
counsels Cuchullain's death by treachery, proposes that at a ford 
across the Neeth, which formed TJladh's southern boundary, a single 
combat should be daily waged against the northern hero. 

*' Speak to Cuchullain : ' By that ford stand thou, 
Guarding thy land. Against thee, day by day. 
Be ours to send one champion — one alone — 
While lasts that strife, forbear the host beside.' 
Then roared the kings a long and loud applause. 

Likewise Cuchullain, when his friend returned. 

Made answer ; ' Well you guessed ! a month or more 

My strength will hold : meantime our Uladh arms.* " — (p. 147). 

A series of single combats then begins, in all of which Cuchullain 
is victoiions — 

" Every eve 
Again went up from that confederate host 
The shout of rage. Daily their bravest died, 
Thirty in thirty days."— (p. 148). 

And three times thirty days the contest lasted, while Cuchullain 
hoped in vain for the arrival of the northern army. But the magic 



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730 De Verds Legends of Ireland's Heroic Age. 

art of Fajrthleen had oast a spell over Ulster, and on tlie nineteenth 
day the hero's father returns to tell him : 

'< Uladh 18 mad ; the Bed Branch House is mad : 
We too are mad ; and all the world are mad, 
Mad as thy mother ! Through the realm I sped : 
A mist hung o'er it heavj, and on her sons 
Imbecile spirit, and a heartless mind. 
And base soul sickness." — (p. 155). 

Cuohullain's cry of anguish at his father's story moves the gods 
to pity ; and Mor Beega, the battle-goddess of our ancestors, 
** Bre that cry 
Had left its last vibration on the air . . . 
Was drifting oyer Uladh. . . 

. . . The spell was snapped : 
Humanity returned to man !" — (p. 158). 

Meantime, while Ulster arms, the combat rages at the ford ; and 
Meaye at length gives way to the entreaties of her chiefs, and, first by 
presents, then by the offer of her daughter's hand, urges Ferdia to 
win the passage of the ford. Ferdia was one of Cuchullain*8 earliest 
friends, trained with him by Scatha in all the arts of war, his equal 
in eveiy feat of arms, if we except the dread Qae-Bulg. And yet he 
yields to Meave's entreaties — to her promises of lands, and treasure, 
and a bride, as Denis Florence Mac Oarthy tells us in " Ferdiah " 
(p. 42.); to the power of love alone, as Mr. de Yere assures us. At 
the appointed hour he advances to the ford ; and after a verbal contest, 
which, in Mr. de Yere*s hands, is as superior to the Irish original in 
nobility of thought, as it is inferior to it in duration, he chooses the 
javelin for the weapon of the first day's combat We cannot quote 
the fine verses in which our author paints the fortunes of the day ; 
but we shall quote those which tell how it ended. 

*' Eyening fell 
And stayed perforce that combat Slowly drew 
The warriors near ; and as they noted, each. 
The other bleeding, in its strength returned 
The friendship unextinct : round either's neck 
That other wound his arms and kissed him thrice : 
That night their coursers in the self -same field 
Grazed, side by side : that night their charioteers 
With rushes gathered from the self- same stream 
Made smooth their masters' beds, then sat themselTes 
By the same fire. Of eyery healing herb 
That lulled his wounds Cuchullain sent the half 
To staunch Ferdiah's ; while to him in turn 
Ferdiah sent whate'er of meats and drinks 
Held strengthening p3wer or cordial, to allay 
Distempered nerre or nimble spirit infuse. 
In equal portions shared."— (p. 173). 

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De Vere's Legends of IreiancPs Heroic Age. 731 

There is no more touohing episode in the great Gbeek epic than 
this of the Ulster hero defending his country against the friend of his 
childhood. Indeed, there is no warrior in either Homeric army who 
can fitly be compared with GuchuUain, if Hector be excepted ; and 
Hector is neither placed in circumstances like those of the northern 
chief; nor, even were he so placed, should we expect him, from Homer's 
description of his character, to act as Cuchullain acted. The blind 
fuiy of the combat blots out all tender feelings, at least as regards the 
foe, in the noblest personages of the southern legend: Hector himself 
is as incapable of falling on his adversary's neck after an equally 
contested light, as he is of sparing his adversary's son, should the 
chance of battle bring him within reach of his lance or spear. And 
Mr. de Yere does little more than put into strong harmonious verse 
the spirit of the Irish original in all this '' Combat at the Ford ;" he 
shows us the warriors parting in friendship still after the contest of 
another day, and then paints the change that came upon them as the 
third one glided by : 

" Sharper that day their speech ; 
For in the intenser present, years gone by 
Hung but like pallid, thin, horizon clouds 
O'er memory's loneliest limit. Evening sank 
Upon the dripping groves and shuddering flood 
With rainy wailings. Not as heretofore 
Their parting. Haughtily their mail they tossed 
Bach to his followers. In the self -same field 
That night their coursers graced not ; neither sat 
Their charioteers beside the self -same fire : 
Nor sent they, each to other, healing herbs." — (p. 175). 

They meet again, this time to end the fight : 

"Theyemalday 
Panted with summer ardours, while aloft 
Noontide, a fire-tressed Fury, wared her torch, 
Kindling the lit grove and its youngling green 
From the azure-biasing zenith. As the heat 
So waxed the warriors' frenzy. Hours went by : 
That day they sought not rest on rock or mound. 
Held no discourse." — (p. 177). 

How the struggle ended, how Ferdiah fell, slain by the GFae-Bulg, 
which alone he feared, we shall let our readers learn from our author's 
pages : we shall only quote some of the concluding lines of this beau- 
tiful fragment : — 

'* All was o'er. To earth the warrior sank : 
Dying, he spake : ' Not thine this deed, O friend — 
'Twas Meave that winged that bolt into my heart!' 

Then ran Cuchullain to that great one dead, 
And raised him in his arms, and laid him down 
Beside the Ford, but on its northern bank. 

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732 De Vere/*s Legends o/IrelancTs Heroic Age. 

Not in that realm b j Ailill swayed and Heave : 

Long time he looked the dead man in the faee; 

Then by him fell in swoon. ' CuchuUain, rise I 

The men of Erin be upon thee I Bise ! 

Thus Leagfa. He answered, waking : * Let them come! 

To me what profit if I lire or die ? 

The man I loTed is dead !' "— (p- 180). 

We venture to assert Hiat nothing in classical literature will be found 
to surpass — we doubt if anything in classical literature can be found 
to equal — ^this scene from Uie Irish epic. 

Our pleasant task is nearly done, for thougb Mr. do Yere, in two 
additional fragments, deals with the '' Invasion of Uladh," and of 
'' Queen Meave*s Retreat," we can epitomise them very briefly. After 
Ferdiah's death Cuchullain, suffering from his wounds, suffering still 
more from sorrow for his friend, can guard the ford no longer. Queen 
Meave crosses into Ulster, and, having captured the Donn Cuailgn^, 
prime object of the expedition, marches triumphantly through the 
defenceless kingdom, and, after camping in sight of Eman, turns back 
southward to her realm of Connaught. 

<* The Shenan near, 
Beside Ath-Luain streaming in its might," 

where she had halted ''to make division of her spoO," the north- 
em army overtook her. In the hour of peril Fergus is appointed to 
command ; he forms the battle, and, by his skill and valour, turns the 
fortimes of the day against his countrymen, winning his long-thirsted- 
for revenge at last, when he meets Conor Conchobar and smites him 
to the earth, '' a bleeding mass. Fergus has taken vengeance for the 
sons of TJsnach, and the pledge so treacherously broken ; and so when 
CuchuUain reaches the panic-stricken northern camp, Fergus and lus 
exiles take no part in the struggle which begins afresh. The resoU 
is now adverse to Queen Meave, who, in the universal flight, is only 
saved from death by Guchullain's generosity. Let our last quotation 
be the lines in which Mr. de Yere tells of the bearing of the victors 
towards those of their countrymen who had been the cause of thdr 
defeat upon the day before. They will explain our meaning when we 
say that Mr. de Yere has few rivals, when he chooses, in the ait of 
pregnant writing : 

'* Fergus alone 

The Bzile-King, and tbej the Exile-Band, 

Fled not that day. Though few and bleeding fast, 

Fearless upon a cloudy crag they stood ; 



. . . The host pursuing 
Looked up, yet swenred not from their course. Once more 
Returning from their yengeance they looked up ; 
Then passed in silence by.''— <p. 227). 



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De Vere's Legends of Ireland's Historic Age, 733 

We have done ; for of " The Children of Lir," a poem of some forty 
pages, we do not purpose to speak. Our admiration for " The Foray of 
Queen Meave " has led us into such a multitude of quotations, that we 
have no space to deal with the third portion of Mr. de Vere's volume. 
Besides, the interest evoked by the whole of " The Foray/' and by the 
latter part of " The Sons of XJsnach " render it difficult to appreciate 
fairly the '' Children of Lir/' where the subject is so undramatically 
developed as to make a lengthened poetical treatment of it, something 
of a literary wonder. And we would not be understood to lay the 
charge of wearisomeness at Mr. de Vere's door. No one who has read 
Professor O'Curry's translation of the " Fate of the Children of Lir"* 
can fail to see that it has gained very largely in Mr. de Yere's hands. 
But it is essentially unepic — ^if we may use the word — better suited, if 
it were not so unwieldy, to be a digression than an independent poem, 
and so prosaic in its details that even Mr. de Yere's ability, and com- 
mand of language cannot change it into poetry. 

An English reviewer has regretted that Mr. de Yere should have 
chosen subjects so "remote from modem thought," personalities '' too 
vague for a realistic generation, whose names the English reader 
stumbles at, and whose qualities and deeds are informed by a genius 
which differs utterly from our own." We cannot share in the regret ; 
we thank Mr. de Yere, not less for his choice of subjects than for his 
treatment of them ; we would not change the " Sons of XJsnach " and 
the " Foray of Queen Meave " for anything more modem. We are 
happy to think that a widening circle of appreciative readers will be 
the effect and the reward of labours such as those of Mr. de Yere ; and 
we believe that when the marks of past oppression have been blotted 
out, when education spreads among our people and they have regained 
their rights, they will take quite as high an intellectual interest in the 
exploits of Queen Meave and Conor Mac Nessa, as could any Anglo- 
Norman in the mythical feats of Arthur and his Knights of the Round 
Table. 



NEW BOOKS. 



We are reluctantly compelled to confine ourselves for the present to a 
mere announcement of several new books, which we hope to notice 
next month more fully. The foremost of these is the magnificent 
quarto edition of the celebrated " Spirit of the Nation," which the 
original publishers, Messrs. James Duffy & Sons, have just brought 

• <* AtUntiB," Nob. tU. and ^iu., p. 115. 

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734 ^^^ Books* 

out afresh under the very fitting and competent editorship of the 
Bev. C. P. Meehan, who has added several poem's of Mangan's, not 
easily procurable, and not included in the Mitchel collection. There 
are also many additions in the music of this edition. 

Another very important publication, a contrast to the preceding in 
size and price, is a new penny Catechism, published for the Arch- 
bishops and Bishops of Ireland by M. H. Gill & Son. 

Messrs. Bums and Gates have published, in their usual excellent 
style, two volumes of Meditations for every day of the year, adapted 
from the French of Abb6 de Brandt by a Daughter of the Cross, under 
the title of ** Growth in the Knowledge of our Lord." The meditations 
are very beautiful, very full and systematic, consisting of preludes^ 
points, colloquy, resolutions, and a tessera or thought for the day. 

Mr. Washboume sends us a pamphlet, '^The Vatican and the 
Quirinal," translated from the Italian by Mr. Alexander Wood, who 
prefixes a curious preface of about the same length as the work trans- 
lated. 

The great " American Catholic Quarterly," published at Philadel- 
phia, continues to visit us punctually, and to maintain well its high and 
arduous position. We have also to acknowledge the receipt of the 
" Celtic Magazine," "Donahoe's Magazine," " The Youth's Cabinet" 
(P. O'Shea, New York), the " Ave Maria," all full of excellent and 
edifying matter, each of its own kind. From the same country comes 
the remarkably useful, interesting, and altogether excellent " Catholic 
Family Annual," published by the New York Catholic Publication 
Society. There is a large number of portraits, chiefiy of contemporaiy 
ecclesiastics, which have the look of truthful likenesses. 

To come back to our good city of Dublin, we thank Messrs. Gill for 
two most dainty little tomes, containing the first and second series of 
** Golden Ghrains," exquisitely printed; and Messrs. Duffy, for three 
more of the reprints of the little threepenny tracts we noticed before — 
"The Holy Eucharist," "The Virtues of the Blessed Virgin," and 
Father Pinamonti's "Hell opened to Christians, to caution them 
against entering it." May they be scattered broadcast ! 

Mr. John Mara, Crow-street, Dublin, has issued "The Irish Edu- 
cational Guide and Scholastic Directory," for 1882-83. It gives the 
Intermediate Education Act, and other documents bearing on educa- 
tional matters, but its chief value is as a special advertiser of schools 
and colleges. 

Two or three other books sent to us for review, we pass over with 
a silence by no means respectful. " Non parliam di loro, ma guarda e 
passa" Why does a conscientious publisher waste fine type and paper 
on such stuff as a certain story lying here before us, which, in mercy, 
we forbear to name ? 



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( 735 ) 



STUDY AND FAITH, 

AK ADDBE8S** 
BY THE BEY* TH0BCA8 A« FIKLAY, S.J. 

AT this, the first meetiiig of our Association, the foremost question 
it oonoems us to put ourselYOS would seem to be this : For what 
purpose haYO we come together here ? — ^what special work do we propose 
to carry on ? With what intent haYO jou been asked to giYe up your 
occupations of profit or pleasure to come hither to hear religious tiiemes 
discussed, and to join in exercises of religious worship ? Are there 
not times already appointed for religious instruction, and opportimities 
sufficient proYided for the practice of religious duties P Do we propose 
now to add to the aYailable number of pious discourses, or to increase 
by yet another the occasions of dcYotional exercise ? 

This, by all means, we propose to do, and doing thus much, we 
should, according to the Christian estimate of things, be doing a great 
deaL But we also propose to go further than this. We aim at doing 
a work for which, outside of an Association of this kind, it is difficult 
to find room ; which must, howcYor, be done in one way or another, 
if we would meet a Yezy serious want, and safeguard Yexy important 
interests. 

It will be within the experience of most of those whom I now 
address that the students who frequent the scientific and higher pro- 
fessional schools of this city must encounter many dangers to religious 
faith, and many hindrances to religious practices. It is hardly possible 
to join in the OYeiyday life of the students who foUow the Arts' 
Ck>ur6e8 of the UniYorsities or attend the schools of Medicine and Law, 
without feeling that here it requires a strong effort to keep fresh the 
spirit of Faith, and a stronger effort still to be faithful to the practical 
duties religion imposes. 

Many causes combine to bring about this result. In the first place, 
the pursuit of what, we are accustomed to call y profane learning " 
may tend, of itself, to obscure our appreciation of religious truth, and to 
blunt our sensibility to religious motiYCs. The study of literature, art, or 
science, pursued with absorbing attention, has this direct effect. Eeligi- 
ous truth is, for the most part, concerned with facts which lie outside ihe 
domain of natural law. They are not reached by aid of any of the facul- 
ties which educational processes dcYclop. The quickened faculty of 
observation which seizes the Yarious aspects of natural phenomena, the 
trained power of reasoning which traces phenomena to their immediate 
causes, and thence farther back to uniYersiEd law, the cultiYated sense of 
what is beautiful in nature or in art, the refined appreciation of the great 

* To the Sodality of the Blessed Yirgin Haiy, St. Ignatius' College. Dublin. 
Vol. z., No. 114, December, 1882. 46 

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736 Study and Faith. 

literary monuments of successive civilisations, all these giftsmay form the 
man of science, orthe man of ta3te» or the scholar, but they are unavailing 
for the discovery of supernatural truth, and reach but a short way in 
the investigation of it. Of its nature, it does not arise out of any of the 
subjects with which science, aA*t, or schoktrship deals. It belongs to an 
order with which they are only remotely concerned — an order, in 
which, by a Providence we may hereafter have opportunity to examine, 
the trained intellect has small advantage over the dormant faculties of 
the ignorant, or the immature faculties of the child. 

In plain terms, knowledge of physical nature, skill in art, proficiency 
in literature, do not, any of them, or all of them, help us to a readier 
apprehension of supernatural truth, or make easier our assent to it. 
And this precisely because the truth in question is supernatural, and 
these attainments are acquired by the study of merely natural truths, 
and are aids to progress only in the direction which has been followed 
to acquire them. The profoundest acquaintance with the laws of 
optics will not bring us any whit nearer Faith in the statement that 
it was the voice of a personal God which first said : '* Let there be 
light." Nor will any knowledge, however intimate, of the structure 
of the human frame or the functioQS of the human organism make at 
all easier our assent to the doctrine that it was the same Ghreat Being who 
breathed into man the breath of life when first he became a living soul. 
It is true that, if we are of reverent mind, and otherwise disposed to 
Faith, we shall find in our study of optics or physiology oocasionB 
which will solicit our homage to the Creator's wisdom. But that such 
homage is rendered is due to our gift of Faith, and not to our knowledge 
of optics or physiology. Scientific study will furnish us plentifully 
with opportunities of manifesting our Faith, it will do little towards 
helping us to acquire it. 

We may go a step further, and say that the pursuit of human 
learning, carried on to the neglect of the gifts on which Faith is 
founded is so far from leading us to supernatural knowledge that it 
tends rather to separate us from it. The mind, like the body, forms 
itself to the influences under which it lives, accommodates itself gradu- 
ally to its accustomed surroundings, forms habits in harmony with its 
usual pursuits, and acquires by use a fixed tone and temper which render 
difiicult its action under new conditions. It has been said of us that 
we are creatures of habit, and the statement is, perhaps, more widely 
true when understood of the functions of the mind than when applied 
to those of the body. If our intellectual life is wholly passed in the 
region of natural knowledge, we shall find our faculties at fault when 
we are brought face to face with the supematuraL The lungs which 
breathe habitually the dense air of low lying plains, do not easily 
adapt themselves to the rarified atmosphere of elevated mountain 
'^ns. In the same way, the mind which lives and movea wholly in 



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study and Faith. 737 

the sphere of natural law, and is conversant only with rational methods 
of inquiry, is Ul-prepared for the understanding of truths of the higher 
supematiiral order. 

Scientific men engrossed in one department of research not unfre- 
quently speak slightingly of the labours of those who are at work in 
a different field, and pursue different methods. It is not unusual 
to hear metaphysicians of a certain school rail at the theories which 
haye grown out of modem discoveries in chemistry, and it is still less 
unusual to hear the chemist turn to ridicule the meditations of the 
metaphysician. The one has no appreciation for the truth as it com- 
mends itself to the other; he is not prepared for it when it is presente I 
to him in a form with which he is not conversant ; he is accustomel 
to see it manifest itself in a well-known order of phenomena, and to 
register it in certain fixed formulas ; if it will show itself in another 
guise, or will not fit in with his scheme of formulas, he cannot master 
it at all. He measures it in its new shape by his familiar standards ; 
if he cannot gauge it thus, he declines to receive it. This want of 
intellectual sympathy with new forms of truth is specially observable 
when men who are students of nature or art, and nothing besides, are 
challenged by the doctrines of revelation. They examine these strange 
teachings by the light in which they are accustomed to study their 
scientific or artistic theories, they judge them by the canons which 
they are practised in applying ; and so it cometf to pass that their 
process of criticism ends in the rejection of revealed truth. 

The critic is a man of unimpassioned nature. If so, he simply puts 
aside the doctrines that have solicited his assent He has disposed, 
once for all, of their claims ; they are nothing more to him. He has 
other subjects of inquiry to whidi he may usefully devote himself, and 
to these he turns. He has, however, no objection that other men 
should occupy themselves with religious theories, and put faith in 
ihem. Nay, he will allow that it is, on the whole, desirable that the 
masses should hold to religious beliefs, should be taught to find in 
them something more than enlightened criticism can honestly admit 
them to contain. For religion, when thus taught, exerts a controlling 
influence on the masses, with which, for the moment, the world could 
ill dispense. In time, perhaps, education wiU be more widely diffused, 
and a knowledge of physical law and of economic science will spread 
downwards to the lower grades of society. When that time has come, 
all men will follow reason as their guide, will be obedient to law, and 
zealous for social .order. But that day is not yet, and meantime 
religion does fairly well that office which universal enlightenment 
will do later, and so it had better be provisionally maintained till 
physical science is duly taught, and the bulk of the population has 
acquired a sound knowledge of economic theories. 

This type of unbelief is perhaps not of frequent occurrence amongst 

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738 Study and Faith. 

OB. But there is another which forces itseli more prommently into 
notice and with which we are better acquainted. The critic who haa 
decided against the daims of revelation is of ardent and enthusiaatic 
temperament. He is capable of violent hatred, and his hate is roused 
by tiie doctrines which he has weighed and found wanting. He will 
make no compromise with error. What is false must not be tolerated 
on any terms or for any purpose whatever ; no end, however good, can 
justify the existence of a system by which human minds are deluded. 
He declares war against the doctrines he has found to be baseless, and 
pursues them with an ardour which does not always discriminate 
between the doctrines impeached and the men who believe in them. 
The unbeliever of this type is usually a master of sarcasm, he is skilful 
in casting ridicule on tiie objects of his hatred, and he uses this 
method with a freedom not always consistent with good taste. He 
singles out the weaknesses, the follies, or the superstitions for which 
religious practices give weak minds occasion, and holds these up 
as the natural outcome and necessary effect of religious teaching. 
A. less violent adversary would stay to reflect that human ignorance 
and human passion have ever perverted, and will continue to pervert 
the things that are most sacred, and that the perversion is more gro- 
tesque in proportion as the thing perverted is holier. But he is too 
eager to be stayed by such a thought as this. The personal faults or 
ugly individual characteristics of a few believers are seized upon and 
paraded before th'b world to raise a laugh at the cost of the creed 
which has been sinned against by the extravagances at which scorn is 
directed. There are wedc men, foolish men, ambitious men, deceitful 
men, dissolute men, among the followers of every system, and the 
disciples of every master. Why should religion alone be held respon- 
sible for the follies, the ambition, the deceit, the worthlessness and the 
depravity which seek shelter or immunity under its name ? A man 
announces himself a lawyer or a physician, and he is legally autho- 
rised to practise these professions. This guarantee, notwithstanding, 
we discover him to be a blunderer or knave. Do we, there- 
upon, renounce confidence in law and medicine, and hold them to be 
inventions of fools or hypocrites, which honest men are bound to com- 
bat P The most censorious critic will hardly push condemnation so 
far ; yet condemnation urged to this limit is not unusual where religion 
is concerned, and in this case it not unf requently passes for equitable 
judgment. The absurdities, the meanness, thQ vices of unt^^orthy men, 
who pretend to a religious character or represent religious authority, are 
visited upon the principles which their faults are outraging. The law 
which reprobates sin is made the subject of ridicule because the servant 
of the law happens to be a sinner. The evil is of native growth within 
him, he would be what he is under any system which left the himiaa 
will free to do wroug ; his unworthiness, nevertheless, is held to justify 



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Siudy and Faith. 739 

an inveotive against doctrines that are holy, because being what he is, 
he has chosen to profess allegiance to them. 

I bring before you these methods of censure and schools of criticism 
as representing the ultimate stages of a process by which the engross- 
ing study of literature or science has been known to issue in infidelity. 
I speak as yet only of danger arising from the very nature of the 
studies in which most of those here present are engaged. This danger 
becomes more pressing when these studies must be pursued under the 
guidance of men who haye passed through the process I have been 
describing, and have come forth from it without Faith themselyes, 
and with a ready will to destroy it in others. Now it is undeniable 
that many of our most distinguished modem masters in science and 
art, many of those men whose works we must consult under pain of 
remaining ignorant of much which it imports us to know, have achieved 
their pre-eminence in special knowledge at the cost of their religious 
Faith. Their works reflect balefully the sad condition of mind to 
which they have attained, and even their treatment of scientific ques- 
tions, without directly inculcating infidelity, can insinuate the temper 
of unbelief. 

As a rule, however, men of this class are not content to teach un- 
belief by implication. Their infidelity is of the aggressive type which 
we have just now been considering. They seem possessed of a frenzy 
of hate for the beliefs they have abandoned, and assail them with 
invective or ridicule in the name of the science they claim to represent. 
Beaders of the Anthropological Society's Publications were startled 
some years ago, by the language in which a well-known naturalist 
connected the first preachers of Christianity with the presumed 
apish progenitors of man. '* It is not so very improbable," wrote this 
man of science, '' that the new religion, before which the flourishing 
Boman civilisation relapsed into a state of barbarism, should have 
been introduced by people in whose skulls the anatomist finds simious 
characters so well developed, and in which the phrenologist finds the 
organ of veneration so much enlarged. I shall, in the meanwhile, call 
these simious narrow skidls of Switzerland 'Apostle skulls,* as I 
imagine that in life they must have resembled the type of Peter the 
Apostle, as represented in Byzantine — Nazarene art." 

This is, perhaps, an extreme instance of that kind of criticism on 
which I am commenting. In the native literature of these countries 
we do not often come upon a passage which presents such a combina- 
tion of ignorance of history, scientific superstition, and coarseness of 
taste as that which I have quoted. But we meet with very much 
which tends to the same purpose, though the language may be more 
refined, and the humour less uncouth. Professor Tyndall can exercise 
his wit on themes kindred to that on which Professor Vogt has chosen 
to exercise his vulgarity, and on the whole, perhaps, the wit of the one 
is more dangerous than the vidgarity of the other. ^ t 

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740 Study and Faith. 

If I have dwelt at some length upon this infidelity of the aggressivB 
school, it is because it seems to me that we have special cause to know 
and to fear it. We have already examples enough before us to allow 
us to determine the specific character infidelity will assume in Ireland. 
It is the fashion to congratulate ourselves on an inalienable posseesioa 
of the gift of Faith, to assume that we are not accessible to the influ- 
ences under which other nations have fallen away. But the truth is 
that as far as regards the men who have grown up under the influeneeB 
now abroad, this self-gratulation is not justified. Many amongst us 
will have had opportunity of studying infidelity as it appears in the 
Irishman, and will have observed that it is most frequently of that 
type which I have called the aggressive. He is not content with 
abandoning his Faith, he turns upon it to destroy it. It may be that 
he is never quite sure of the reality of his apostasy, and that he feels 
called upon to be zealous that he may seem to himself sincere. Or it 
may be that the tendency to be demonstrative, which seems to belong to 
our nation, impels him to exhibit before his neighbours what will startle 
even if it distresses them. It would, perhaps, be unjust to compare 
him with the Frenchman, vain of the grotesqueness and extravagance 
of his unbelief, and elated by the horror his vapourings excite among 
those who have not the good sense to despise them. But it would 
hardly be unfair to compare him to the Frenchman in the violence of 
his hostility to the religion he has discarded. Like the Frenchman, 
too, he is of quick and ready wit; he has specious arguments in 
abundance, and he is always able to throw ridicule on the cause he is 
assailing. The shortcomings or the indiscretions of the ministers 
supply congenial material for his invective or his raillery, and these 
he denounces heartily, involving the Faith in his depreciation of its 
exponents. Hating his cast-ofP creed, because he cannot cease to fear 
it, and shutting out remorse by the studied fervour of his hatred ; at 
enmity with what most of those about him love best, and professing 
to despise what they prize most, he would not seem to be a being 
formed to gain ascendency over his fellows. Nevertheless there are 
found minds over which he can establish his influence, weaker natures 
who admire daring in any shape, be it only the braggart courage whidi 
defies God while God does not appear. 

As yet he is not a familiar character in Irish society ; but he is 
making his presence felt, and he is not far to seek for those who choose 
to find him. It is not unlikely that in time he will come to be much 
better known amongst us. When education becomes more general, 
and is of a higher kind, when knowledge spreads, and the pride which 
knowledge engenders inclines men more and more to question estab- 
lished principles and to resist established forms of moral government; 
doctrines such as he is prepared to preach will find readier acceptance^ 
and we may take it that in that day he will not neglect his opporta- 



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study and Faith, 471 

nities. Already, however, he has an importance great enough to be 
dangerous. He is amongst us, to represent the peculiar form of 
unbelief into which the Irish mind is most liable to run ii^ its wander- 
ing, and to propagate that form of .infidel thought which falls in best 
with our peculiarities of national character^ and is, thus, most likely to 
be effectively mischievous. 

Hitherto I have spoken only of those dangers to Faith which are 
incidental to intellectual pursuits-— of that infidelity in which isthe per- 
version which begins with the intellect. There is yet another method of 
perversion more fruitful than the first, not peculiar to this country or to 
this age, making victims in all times and places. I allude to the apostasy 
which begins in a violation of religious and moral law, and ends in the 
denial of religious truth and moral obligation. Infidelity in this case 
10 in part a consequence of mental degradation ; in part it is adopted 
to excuse it. When a man's lower passions gain the mastery over him, 
he soon loses all sense for higher truth. Vice engages ^e intellect 
as well as the heart ; as a man progresses in evil, his power to appreciate 
things above the reach of his passions, must gradually decline. He 
lives in a clouded atmosphere whoUy remote from religious truth, and, 
in time, he comes to believe that what he cannot see does not exist. 
Besides, he must find some justification for his excesses, something 
which will serve as a reply to the remonstrances of friends, and meet the 
reproaches of his conscience. To deny the claims of religious truth, and 
the force of religious law is convenient for both purposes. It permits him 
the pretence of being logical in his depravity. If there is no truth in 
religious theories, the strictures of his advisers are unwarranted, and 
if there is no binding force in religious law, remorse of conscience is an 
impertinenoe. If religion is proved to be groundless, he can be at eaae 
in his sin ; and as he has resolved to be at ease in his sin, he sets him- 
self to prove that religion is groundless. 

A limited acquaintance with student life in this city will be enough 
to give you practical knowledge of infidelity of this kind. Here you 
may watch it through all the stages of its progress^ and study it in its 
consummation. You may see the yoimg man come to one or other of 
our lecture-halls, &om a home where he has been taught to reverence 
Faith and to love virtue. He bears upon him the impress of the 
purity and manly uprightness which hallow the Irish household, where 
he has been a centre for the affection of many hearts. He comes, 
bright with the innocence of youth and filled with its hopes, eager for 
success, which he would win as much for the sake of those whose love 
has followed him into his new career as for his own. For a time all 
goes weU ; he is not sensible of the infection which poisons the atmos- 
phere around him, and virtue, home, and friends are things sacred to 
him still. But, at last, the day comes when his eyes are opened to 
see good and evil. He resists at first, and struggles against the seduc* 

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742 AdtedeLuce Vigilo. 

tions to sin ; but recnmng temptation, the solidtationB of piofligate 
aasooiates, the violenoe of hiB own paaaions orerpower him at length, 
and he yields. He is now in the power of his sins, and the beauty of 
his life fades qnicUy. His friends notice the change, and for a while 
tzy to persuade themselves that it is the result of new oocupationB, a 
necessary result of his more serious pursuits. But his appetite for 
indulgence is growing, his sins are multiplying fast upon him, and at 
last he grows bold enough to put away pretences. Friends, acquain- 
tances of the better kind, social forms and observances, everything 
that could connect him with the days of his innocence, are flung aside, 
and he becomes boldly and defiantly dissolute. 

After this you will see him drift speedily towards the castaways of 
society, and among them struggle to maintain himself for a time. 
Then he disappears altogether. A scene in a workhouse or hospital 
ward, for wiser men to moralise over ; or a deathbed in some quiet 
country home, where a mother sobs her prayer that Gbd would give 
back to her child as much of his old gift of Faith as will enable him 
to ask for mercy before he dies, and then all is over ; and only broken 
hearts, a dishonoured home, and the tale of a ruined life survive as 
monuments of his career. 

Our Association is designed to meet in some way, the evils that 
issue in results like this. We propose to discuss at our meetings the 
themes on which the cultivated intellects of our time most readily 
adopt views that lead to loss of Faith. And we propose, too, to take 
suitable occasion to encourage in those who frequent our meetings the 
practice of those duties which their religion lays upon them. 



AD TE DE LUCE VIGILO. 

BY SISTER MART AGN£8. 

AGAIN I rise, another day to meet, 
Of which Thou seest, Lord, the bitter pain ; 
But ere I lift its burden, at thy feet 
I kneel, thy blessing on its toil to gain. 

Give me, dear God, the courage and the grace 
To keep my footing on life's giddy way ; 

I dare not look the future in the face, 
I only pray for strength to meet to-day. 



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The Life of a Saint ^ \i 

Behind me lie the sorrows of a life. 

Before me dangers rather felt than seen ; 

Around me rings the damonr and the strife 
Of fierce desire, and of ambition keen. 

Within, ah ! most of all, within my soul. 

An aching load of disappointment lies : 
So long I struggle to attain the goal. 

So long thy Providence success denies 

So long I labour, as it seems, in vain ! 

So uselessly I wear my life away. 
Till, weaxy of its unavailing pain, 

I greet more hopelessly each dawning day. 

I shrink back from the vista of the years 
That yet may be between me and my rest ! 

Still, Thou, the outflow of my heart-si^ fears, 
Lead me by inches, in thy guidance blest ! 

Keep Thou mine eyes upon the present hours. 

Nor idly to the future let them roam ; 
Strengthen my soul in all its failing powers. 

To meet the minutes singly as they come. 

A dawn draws near, though it be long delayed, 
Which T shall welcome as my day of days, 

On which the sunlight of Christ's smile displayed. 
Shall change my mourning into songs of praise ! 



THE LIFE OF A SAINT. 

MOST of us feel that it requires more or less of courage to read the 
life of a saint. It is a thing that we set ourselves to do for 
half an hour or so at a time, and then we lay aside the book with 
some complacency, feeling that we have accomplished our " pious 
reading " for the day, and are, therefore, at liberty to pursue lighter 
and more congenial occupations. And yet we devour eagerly, not 
merely the ordinary run of novels and poetry, but also the lives (many 

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744 '^^ -^(A ^f ^ SainL 

of them veiy ignoble onee) of authors and actors, and famous men 
generally, and never think of begrudging the time we bestow on them. 

Why should this be, I wonder? Why should we findso wearisome 
the contemplation of the peifections of Gk>d's servants, while perhaps 
we fall into raptures over a fancy sketch of imaginary goodness, or a 
little bit of sentiment, in which, if we only took the trouble to look 
more closely, we should detect so easily the hollow ring ? Sometimes 
I think our own vanity and self -consciousness have something to do 
with it. We find it difficult to realise that the saints who seemed to 
give up BO easily all we hold most predous, who accepted the most 
terrible sufferings not only with patience but with joy for God's sake^ 
had the same nature as ourselves, were made of the same treacherous 
flesh and blood, had the same weaknesses to combat, and the same 
enemies to guard against. 

We who find it so hard to fight against the cravings of our earthty 
nature, whose passions are so strong, and whose will is so pitifully 
weak ; we who cry out with all our strength against pain or offering 
of any kind ; we find it easier to tell ourselves that the saints were 
made of different stuff to us, received special graces, and were Ueesed 
with calmer, colder hearts than oura. Their lives are sublime in their 
devotion and unselfishness, yet we contemplate them more or less un- 
concernedly as if, being so unutterably above us, we were not called 
upon to imitate them. *^They had no earthly affections," we say to 
ourselves ; *' how unlike they must have been to us, in whom the power 
of loving is so strongly developed ! They set no store on aught but 
heavenly things ; how much easier, therefore, must it not have been 
for them to give up the goods of this world than it would be for m ! 
Surely we, whose nature is so much grosser, we who have been 
strengthened by no such special graces, are not called upon to do the 
like!" 

I do not venture to say that reflections such as these pass through 
every mind ; on the contrary there are many, who, by reason of tbcdr 
careful, well-regulated education, or their simple unreasoning &ith, 
would laugh to scorn such a suggestion. But is it not true that many of 
us flnd it difficult to meditate for long on these holy lives because it 
seems to us as though there were a sort of unreality about them, as if, 
in fact, we were reading of things with which we have no oonoemP 

And yet, if we only took the trouble to inquire a Httle more closely 
into the matter, we could no longer doubt that the blessed saints were 
made in very truth like unto us, with the same natures, the same feel- 
ings, the same weakM%%e% even, with this difference, that in them 
nattire was ennobled and elevated by the constant contemplation of 
heavenly things, while the feelings were strengthened and purified, 
and the weaknesses were — combated and avercoms^l The saints were 
human like ourselves, but holier and more perfect. That is what we 



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The Life of a SainL 745 

do not seem to realise, partly, as I say, because we do not take the 
trouble to ihifi^ sufficiently, and partly because very often such of the 
' Liyes of the Saints '* as come in our way, are written in a con- 
densed, cut-and-dried sort of fashion, and do not attract our ima- 
gination or exdte our interest. 

And this brings me back to my starting-point. I want to speak 
of one '' Life of a Saint '* in particular, the '' History of St. Elizabeth 
of Hungary," by Montalembert, a work that is not merely the record 
of one of the most perfect beings that erer existed, but which is also 
a gem in itself, a masterpiece of writing. I know that many, whose 
voices are more worthy to be heard than mine, have raised them in its 
praise, but no one, I venture to say, could feel more deeply the chaim 
of this little book, and calling to mind that on the 19th of November 
we celebrated the feast of this most lovable of saints, I take courage 
to write a few words in praise of this record of her life, in hopes of 
inducing any who are not already acquainted with it, to peruse it with- 
out delay. It presents a most perfect picture of the times in which St. 
Elizabetii lived — that century of chivalry and romance, when men 
were not ashamed to confess their faith, and love was love indeed. 

No one who has once read this work could continue to delude him- 
self with the false, but unfortunately, too common reasoning I have 
before spoken of. St. Elizabeth is so essentially a uxmum^ one of our- 
selves, who rejoiced even as we rejoice, and sorrowed as we sorrow, 
nay, whose heart beat quick with the throbs of hiunan love. Monta- 
lembert has presented her to us in her most charming aspect, not only 
as a great saint, but also as a most perfect wife and mother. Nothing 
<x>uld be more touching or edifying than the picture he has drawn for 
us of her love for her husband. 

Love is a need of our nature, without which we cannot, most of us, 
believe it possible to exist, yet there is a too common idea, that love, 
the love between man and woman, is a thing that is looked on coldly 
and with disfavour by holy people, and that in a saint such a feeling 
would be impossible. Consequently, many of us are inclined to be dis- 
heartened at the idea of the sacrifices that are expected of us, and to think 
it useless to attempt "to be good," as by so doing we must make up 
our minds to give up all that is sweet in life. 

What an absurd idea this is ! Surely Providence, who made all 
things good, would not have placed so strong, so absorbing, a feeling 
in our breasts if He did not mean it to be a great and noble thing. For 
it is not as though it were a weak and sinful passion that sprang into 
existence only when our nature fell and became degenerate ; on the 
contrary, were not our'first parents still pure and innocent when Adam 
spoke the first love-tale to his bride in the garden of Eden: *' Thou 
art the flesh of my flesh, and the bone of my bone !*' It was not until 
sin, and death, and evil of all kinds had entered into the world that the 
first shadow of disunion fell between these early lovers. ^ i 

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746 The Life of a Saint. 

Howerer, there is no doubt that love as it shotdd be, pure, diaiiiter- 
€Bted, and nnselfish, is a thing rarely to be met with ; but in the union 
of St. Elizabeth and her yonng husband we have a most perfect pic- 
ture of all that a perfect love should be. 

What could be more graceful or more touching than the record of 
her early life, from the first moment when delivered over, a baby- 
bride in her silver cradle, to the safe keeping of her future husband. 
She grew up side by side with him, their mutual affection increasing 
in strength and earnestness day by day. How touching to read of the 
little crosses and troubles that came to try that love, which, however, 
rose triumphantly above them all. 

Then later on, when the feelings of a child developed into those of 
woman, wife, and mother, is not the record of the confidence, the devo- 
tion, the implicit faith of husband and wife in each other a poem in 
itself? 

To me there is a charm about the history of this period of St. 
Elizabeth's life of which I can never tire. To illustrate it, one has 
but to mention a single incident, one of the many gracefully told anec- 
dotes with which Montalembert's *' History" abounds. It is an 
account of perhaps the solitary imperfection with which the blessed 
saint had ever to reproach herself, an imperfection which, however, 
serves to show only more plainly the simplicity of her character. 

On one occasion, when she, in company with Duke Louis, assisted 
at a solemn Mass of thanksgiving, the historian tells us that Eliza- 
beth, forgetting for a moment the sanctity of the sacrifice, allowed her 
eyes to wander to the dearly-loved face of her husband, who was 
kneeling at her side, and her thoughts to dwell with infinite affection 
on his goodness, and the many lovable qualities which endeared him to 
all who knew him. At the moment of the consecration, however, our 
Divine Lord deigned by a miracle to recall her thoughts to Himself; 
for, as the priest raised the Sacred Host on high, she beheld in his 
hands the semblance of our Eedeemer crucified, with blood fast drop- 
ping from his wounds. 

We are told in most graphic and pathetic language how bitterly 
our saint bewailed her momentary forgetfulness, how, remaining on 
her knees after the duke and his retinue had left the church, she con- 
tinued to mourn her fault with many tears. How as time went on, 
and the repast prepared for the invited guests was ready, and Eliza- 
beth did not appear, Louis himself went to call her, saying with great 
gentleness : '' Bear sister, why oomest thou not to table, and why doet 
tiiou make us wait so long a time ?" Then seeing, as she raised her 
head, the evidence of her sorrow he knelt by her side, and having 
heard the cause of her trouble, he also began to weep and pray with 
her ! Heavens ! the faith and simplicity of heart of these middle 
ages ! Far from being elated at the thought that the contemplation 



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Twilight. 747 

of his perfectionB oould cause even so great a saint to sin, he was filled 
with consternation at her wrong-doing, slight even though it was. 

Listen to his parting words, as he rises to return to his expectant 
guests : ** Let us put our trust in Gbd. I will aid thee to do penance 
and to become better than thou art !" 

Do not these words describe most perfectly what Christian wedded 
life should be. " IwiU aid th$$ to become better than thou art H She 
was infinitely dear to him, but the honour of his Gk>d was dearer still, 
and he, in his singleness of heart, would fain do what in him lay to 
help her to advance even more and more towards that pinnacle of per- 
fection, which these faithful servants of Gk>d did not despair of attain- 
ing. Oh, blessed type of perfect union ! To love one another in 
Qod, less only than Gk>d, giving to Him, as befitting, the firet place in 
heart and thought 

I have dwelt much on this particular phase of St. Elizabeth's cha- 
racter, because it seems to me, it is so consoling. Woman's natural 
place is home; her ordinary occupations the daily performance of 
household duties ; though, of course, many are called to serve Gk>d in 
other ways ; and it is, as I say, consoling and enooura^g to have be- 
fore us a model of a perfect wife and mother, a type so sweet of what 
we ought to be. 

The '' History of St. Elizabeth," however, treats of many marvels of 
Gk>d's goodness, and of her sanctity, which many people will find even 
more interesting than the story of her everyday life ; and in conclusion, 
I have only to beg of those who may never have come across this most 
charming little book to make themselves acquainted with it without 
delay. They will find its contents repay their trouble well, and will 
think with me that no words could be too strong in its praise. 

M. B. 



TWILIGHT. 



ALAS ! the weary day is done. 
And on my startled ear 
A stealthy footstep falls like lead. 
And numbs my heart with fear : 
'Tis the wan Twilight, messenger of night, 
Who comes to toll her curfew-bell, and mourn the dying light. 

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748 Twilight. 

In the sweet distant days of old, 

In Infancy's bright May, 
I loved her for the gift she bore, 
" The Children's hour " of play; 
Then, when she smiled with my reflected glee, 
I hailed her as a playmate dear, from mortal troubles free. 

In days of youth when opening life 

Shone beautiful and fair, 
I gladly heard her peaceful tones. 
For Love was also there : 
Their whispers blended in my dreaming ear. 
And made the Present far and dim, the Future bright and near. 

The Future came with mingled gifts, 

Sorrow, and joy, and fears, 
The mother's awful happiness. 
The mother's scalding tears. 
When my child's laughter made my heart rejoice, 
Dim Twilight turned to radiant day, to merriment her voice. 

But now the dream of blessedness 

Is fled for evermore. 
My children one by one are gone 
To seek the far-off shore : 
Yet Twilight stays with bitter moan and sigh. 
To wake a longing unf ulfllled, a pain that will not die. 

But if at eve her veiled form 

A dreaded spectre seems. 
What is it when mine eyes are dark 
With shadows from my dreams ! 
When in the dawn she pauses at the door, 
I shrink and shudder at her touch, and long to wake no more. 

Ah ! say, what art thou, Being dim, 

What IB thy mission here ? 
Art thou the shadow pf my grief, 
The echo of my fear P 
Or art thou pining with the exile's doom 
To see earth filling heaven, while yet for thee there is no room ? 

G. B. 



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EVEETDAT THOUGHTS. 

BT iota. FBJUIX PJENTBILL. 
in. — ON CLBVBR WOMEN. 

*' TnzY are parallel isosoeles triangles/' says the girliah voice of Ida, 
as Bhe sits beneath the summer trees, where the birds are singing, and 
the sunshine is dancing around her. 

" Parallel isosceles triangles !'' Doubtless pretty Ida knows exactly 
what it means, and so, I suppose, does the young man in spectacles, 
who is listeniz^ to her— thot^h he strikes me as having a rather 
puzzled and frightened air — but I frankly confess, that for me these 
learned words bear only the vaguest meaning, and give me something 
of the uncomfortable sensation which used to fill my yoimg mind when 
in early days, I was taken for its improvement to the British Museum. 
Yet the scene of to-day is very different from that dismal home of 
sdence ; for we are guests at a garden party : the hum of bees 
and splash of water mingle with the dreamy notes of the '* Br%%B det 
nuitt,^* which the band is playing far away among the shrubs ; people 
pass to and fro in bright attire, scraps of talk, ripples of laughter reach 
me where I sit, but I scarcely heed them, for Ida's words have set me 
thinking. 

Thinking and (wondering whether all this modem cramming of 
youi^ brains, this high-pressure education, turns out better and hap- 
pier women than were our mothers, whose highest ambition was the 
successful termination of a *' Poonah painting," or the faultless play- 
ing of the '' Battle of Prague." Yet our mothers were good women, 
who ruled their lives by a simple, straight-forward faith, made their 
homes happy, and brought up their children to fear God and act 
Slight 

1 suppose we are all weary of hearing of Madame de StaePs famous 
saying, and yet I cannot help recalling how she declared that she 
would give up all her gemus and all her fame to [be beloved, were it 
only for one day I And then, was there not poor Sappho on her rock? 
-She, alas ! found but scant consolation in knowing that no Greek girl 
had ever written, would ever write, such verses as hers. Her name 
might become a household word in the homes of her countiy, might 
be handed down through all ages as that of the one perfect woman- 
poet ; but the consciousness of genius could not allay her grief ; and 
the poor heathen woman knew of no other balm for her sorrow than 
to hush her magic voice for ever beneath the mxumur of the Ionian 
sea. 

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750 Everyday Thoughts, 

Even Margaret Yon Eyck, whose fame was of a nobler kind — she 
who was found worthy to work with her glorious brother at the 
wonderful painting of '' The Triumph of the Lamb*' — are we not told of 
her, that in old age, she bitterly lamented haying given up her whole life 
to art, and neglected homely work and homely affections ? All Bruges 
was proud of her genius, and its citizens pointed her out as one of the 
glories of their town ; but, in her lonely walks she envied the humble 
old women whose grandchildren upheld their tottering steps, and 
soothed their way to the grave. 

Can we not also picture to ourselves George Eliot, while she still 
dwelt in that 'provincial society which she has so faithfully photo- 
graphed for us P She must have known herself immeasurably superior 
to Ihe men and women who surrounded her, and yet her warm woman's 
heart must have seen with envy pretty, brainless girls winning the love 
her great talent could not command. 

It is ever so : the sons and daughters of genius stand on the hiQ- 
tops, in the full light of day, and like eagles they can look at the sun ; 
while, from the mountain sides, their worshippers stretch their hands 
towards them, vainly trying to reach the heights where they dwell 
alone. But are they happier, think you, than we, who walk in the 
shady lanes, where primroses and violets grow, where rivulets murmur 
and little birds sing ? I think not, for it has always seemed to me 
one of Gk)d's greatest and most fatherly mercies, that true, abiding 
content is not the privilege of a few, but is within the reach of us all. 
I am not speaking now of that supreme joy, compared to which all 
others are but as the pleasures of children, but of earthly happiness that 
can be obtained by everyone ; for none of us are so stupid or so plain, 
so poor, or so lowly bom, that we caimot brighten the Hves of o^ers ; 
and there lies the magic key, which will open to us the gates of an 
earthly paradise. 

We do not hear, it is true, that St. Teresa or St Oathexineof Sienna 
ever lamented the loss of sweet home joys and mere human happiness; 
— ^but was not that because something greater than genius filled their 
hearts, and satisfied the cravings of their loving natures ? Their great 
intellect was but the humble hajidmaiden of their holiness, the instru- 
ment wherewith they won souls to Gk>d, and, in lives so full of 
universal love there was no room for mere personal regrets. 

Some years ago, we were spending the winter at Torquay, and 
lamong our friends was a Miss Dashington — one of those people of 
whom eveiyone says : '* Such a ohannii^ woman! I wonder she did 
not many long ago," for Miss Dashington was handsome, dever, 
aocompHi^ed and—forty ; yet she still wore, and wore unwillingly, 
the crown of maidenhood. What could be the reason f Was it ^^^^ 
she was too well trained, too perfect a specimen of nineteen-centuxy 
civilisation P or that she lacked that child-like simplicity which finds 

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Everday Thoughts. 751 

its way to the inner recesses of most people's hearts P One thing was 
certain : no ball or dinner-party was considered complete without Miss 
Daahington's presence ; and the day after one of these social gather 
ings she good-naturedly came to amuse our solitude with an account of 
its details. 

We have said that Miss Dashington was a general favourite, and 
among her especial friends was a certain Mr. Stewart, adever worldly 
man, who found great pleasure in her sparkling talk, and spent many 
half-hours in listening to it. 

'' And was Mr. Stewart there ?" asked we, '' and was he as charm*^ 
ingas usual?" 

'<0h," answered Miss Dashington, with a shade of irritation, 
" Mr. Stewart is like all other men ; he prefers the bright eyes and 
dewy lips of the silliest child to all the good sense and cleyemess in 
the world." Then going suddenly to the sofa, where our invalid lay, 
she kissed her gently, and said, '^ Other people may be pretty or dever 
but you will always be beloved." After this, Miss Dashington returned 
to the tea-table, as if rather ashamed of her unusual revelation of feel- 
ing; and, whUe she rattled on, I lookedat the two women, and thought 
how truly she had spoken. 

There lay '' our invalid " on the sofa, which had been her chief 
resting-place for years. She had never been remarkable for clever- 
ness, and bright eyes and dewy lips were things long pasf7for|her; yet, 
as Miss Dashington said, she was beloved, and exeroiJBed a power 
which many an ambitious woman might have envied. She never 
lectured, she seldom advised, and still the good she did was incalcul- 
able. I have seen giddy girls give up a pleasant ride or a match at 
lawn-teimis to spend an hour^by her couch ; and when they left, it was 
always with higher views of life, and with, at least, some longing for 
goodness and usefulness. I have seen hard cynical men grow softer 
and kinder beneath her influence; and, greatest wonder of all, I 
have seen envious women check in her presence the bitterness of their 
tongues. Were these worldly hearts touched by the sight of so much 
suffezing so patiently borne P Doubtless they were, but I think the 
great secret of our invalid's power lay in this, that she had learned 
from her Divine Master something of that human sympathy with 
sorrow, of that divine tolerance for weakness, of which He was the 
type and model. Sympathy ! Tolerance ! what magic things are 
they 1 What power they wield, what love they win ! How easy they 
seem, and yet what perfection lies in the practice of them* 

But, ah, me! how my mind has bean wandering bf ..k to "The 
Long Ago." I thought I stool again on the shores of beautiful 
Devonshire, while, aU the time, I am within sight of the Dublin 
spires, within sound of the Dublin beUs; — and here, too, comes Ida, 
with her spectacled cavalier. It is pleasant to know that, notwith- 

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752 Under Difficulties. 

standing all lier learning, Ida is not insensible to the healthy attrac- 
tions of sandwiches and daret-cnp, for they are returning fhnn the 
tents. In her hand Ida carries a rose — ^whioh, no doubt, she classes 
under some learned botanical term — but in which, for all thatyshe seems 
to take a natural and simple pleasure, as she looks at it and smoothes 
its leaves, with gentle, dainty fingers. And now a little child mna 
across her path and, stumbling, falls with a cry of pain. In an instant 
the rose is flung aside, and Ida has taken the poor, little thing in her 
arms. She is talking to it — not learned talk, but soft baby nonsense, 
iGtnd the child, looking into Ida's face, smiles and winds its aim around 
her neck. 

Ah, sweet Ida ! it is well with thee ! The fashion of the day may 
have overloaded thy young mind with undigested theories ; may hare 
given thee those little pedantic airs of thine ; but it has not been able 
to crush thy warm heart, or to kill those sweet womanly instincts which 
thou didst inherit from thy mother Eve, and which, D90 pohnte^ wiU 
descend through many generations, even to those last women who at 
the Day of Doom will still be found consoling and strengthening those 
more helpless than themselves. 



UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 

BT BOSA ICULHOLLAIO). 



COMING home one day from visiting a charitable institution for 
great sufPerers, I found myself reflecting on the strange fact that 
the one complaint I had heard during my visit had come from the only 
healthy and well-to-do person I had seen in the house. That life is 
full of this sort of thing nobody needs to be told. Bich people assure 
you pathetically they do not know where to look for money, while the 
really straitened iLsten with closed lips. Oonstant sufPerers will 
give you a cheerful smile, while the individual with an unusual cold 
or sprain is impatiently lamenting his condition. The most wonder- 
ful and beautiful things are oftenest done in the world by people 
who had no opportunities, while those whose hands were full of the 
means never arrive at any end« Creatures whom you might call bom 
to failure are seen to achieve the most signal triumphs ; though some- 
times they are never aware of the fact on this side of eternity, going 
to their graves in all the humility of their ignorance. Eugenie and 
urice de Ouerin, pining to do some noble work in the woild« died 

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Under Difficulties. 753 

early, haying meekly resigned their holy ambition, and believing fhem* 
selyes held unworthy to perform any lasting service to their fellow- 
creatures. Yet in the record they have unwittingly left behind them, 
in the simple correspondence which naturally passed between them as 
brother and sister, showing their aspirations, struggles, and hopes, 
they have actually aocomplished.a work such as their souls had desired. 

The giant, St Christopher, who could neither fast nor pray, and 
yet attained to sanctity by merely using his rude physical strength in 
the service of his fellow-creatures, and for the love of God ; and the 
gentle St Barbara, shut up with her complete ignorance in a high 
tower alone, and making her way to the knowledge of religion by 
means of the moon and stars, the winds and sunshine, as the only com- 
panions of her solitude, are striking instances of resolute souls working 
towards their goal in spite of seemingly insurmountable obstadies. 
The annals of the saints are, of course, fidl of such examples; so are 
the lives of men eminent for their genius, whose names are linked 
with science, with history, and with art in all its forms. Miltoni 
describing the beauties of nature, which he could no longer see, glori- 
fying the earth for others yet imbom with ^'a light that never was on 
sea or shore," kindled in darkness at the very flame of his burning 
affliction ; and Beethoven, writing music which he could never hear, 
except as he heard it while he wrote in the inner choirs of his own 
wondrous brain, can never be forgotten as heroes who wrought on to 
the end under a burden of disheartening difficulty. If either had 
turned his face to the wall, crying, " I am stricken, I can do no more," 
there would have been lost to the world poetiy and music of the loftiest 
order, such as bears witness on earth to the creative power implanted 
in the soul of man by the Creator Himself, as an image of his own 
illimitable might. 

But turning our eyes from these great ones, with whom we would 
appear to have little in common as we trudge along the beaten path 
of our daily lives (often so narrow and hemmed round with barriers as 
to deny us even a distant view of the beautiful, the ideal, or the use- 
ful), we can yet find, on a level with our own feet, and lower still, 
wayfarers who have made the roadside blossom with flowers for others, 
and for themselves, and have found means to cut in the flinty stone 
that walled them roimd, holes through which heaven and all its glories 
can be descried. Creatures of this fibre are every day working im- 
noticed wonders, and rendering beautitul service idl over the earth. 
Such a one was blind EUen, a poor, desolate old woman, who, a few 
years ago, was a well-known character in a village in the south of 
Ireland. While young and comparatively strong she contrived to be 
useful to the neighbours, knitting their socks and nursing their babies, 
but in her latter days, and for years before her death, the utmost she 
could do was to pray for her feUow-creatures. That she did this with 

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754- Under Dijfficulties. 

all her heart and soul the people who remember her can telL Haying 
no home of her own she literallj took up her abode in the church, and 
lived at the foot of the altar, arriving there early every morning, and 
staying tiU late in the evening when the chapel gates had to be dosed 
and someone would come, often a little child, to lead her to whatever 
dwelling was to shelter her that night. 8ho could sleep in a friend's 
bam, or at a kitchen-fire, as well as in a bed when one could be offered 
her. In the middle of the day someone was likely to remember blind 
Ellen, and to send her a morsel of food, which she ate in the poich of 
the church. If all happened to forget her she knew how to fast. Day 
after day, as time went on, she was to be found kneeling on a step 
of the altar, praying unceasingly for her friends, living and dead, and 
offering her humble and never-failing homage to God. Was anyone 
ill or troubled, threatened with misfortune or fallen into sin, a mes- 
sengi^r was despatched to Ellen in the church, to claim her prayers 
for the sufferers. Was anyone dying Ellen was called on to redouble 
her fervour, and to send up her most ardent supplications for the 
peace of the passing soul. She had great opportunities on days when 
confessions were heard in the church, for many of those, both young 
and old, who came out of the confessional could not read a prayer-book, 
and found themselves at a loss when the penance, perhaps a long one 
which they did not know by heart, had to be said. Blind Ellen knew 
all the prayers (it was believed) that ever were composed in or out of 
a book, and had them all on the tip of her tongue, and she was always 
at hand to give help. Was the Way of the Gross to be followed, round 
and round the church she would go on her knees with the penitent, 
reciting the prayers with intense earnestness, while her words were 
echoed by the youth or the girl, or maybe by the aged man or woman 
at her side. U the rosary or the penitiental psalms or a litany had to 
be said she would put herself in front of the altar, with the penitent 
dose to her, and there give out the pleading words right under the 
tabemade. EUen, groping her way round the old church, led by the 
strong young man or pretty maid who needed her predous help was 
a familiar sight to all who came and went within the walls. 
Praying there alone on the altar-steps with her darkened eyes fixed 
on the tabemade, she seemed so completely a part of the sacredness of 
the place that when she died and disappeared the very sanctuary 
seemed lonely without her. In the end she was found dead with her 
head leaning against the altar rails, having passed away quietly 
giving no trouble, nobody having suspected that she was more than 
ordinarily weak or ill. The people who had been accustomed to rely 
on her help, and to feel themsdves sustained by the prayers which 
they had not time or words to present to God for themsdves and whidi 
she so fredy offered for them, missed her sorrowfully out of their 
''ves; and thus a poor creature had gained the rank of an apostle. 



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Under Difficulties. 755 

who, only for her fervent spirit, could have been for years but an atom 
of useless humanity burdening the rates in a poorhouse. 

Even in a poorhouse, however, the same apostolic spirit will some- 
times appear, and in the most unlikely subjects. In a certain house 
of the kind, I know one blind Maiy Ann, upon whom the mantle of 
Ellen would seem to have descended. This jpoor soul, attended by a fresh, 
pleasant-faced girl, who is hannlessly silly (or, to put it as the French 
so tenderly express it, " an innocent ''), spends her days going from 
one ward to another reciting the rosaxy in a loud voice, that aU may 
join who will. Sometimes she recites the entire rosary as often as 
nine times in the course of the day. The " innocent " knows how to 
answer the prayers, which have a fascination for her, and all sweet- 
ness in life to her is f oimd in following Mary Ann about, and making 
hearty responses to her petitions to heaven. The coming of these two 
afflicted and helpless souls is looked for by numbers of their fellow* 
creatures, like the advent of angels; and when anyone is sick unto 
death, Maiy Ann and her simple acolyte are sent for with all speed. 
Death seems to lose half its terrors when Mary Ann is there to pray. 
Into another of those terrible hotels for paupers, which are to so sad an 
extent the nurseries of crime in the land, an elderly woman called 
Martha Qreen found herself driven by a storm of misfortune, after 
long years of industry and helpfulness in an hxmible walk of life. 
*' Now, at last,'' she thought, '' my days of usefulness are over. If I 
were even able to move about through the wards I might be of some 
use in counselling those who have had fewer advantages in the way 
of instruction than myself." But, alas ! she was tied to a bed in the 
hospital, in a far comer, where even her voice could scarcely be heard 
by those in the other beds around her. Nevertheless during the years 
she lingered in that spot, Martha became a powerful agent for good, 
and a large share of the work that ought to be done among us for 
Gk)d, in the course of each twenty-four hours, was entrusted to her 
daily by the angels. First, her patient prayers in the night, spoken 
aloud when she thought everyone else was asleep, were caught by one 
wakeful sufPerer after another, till at last her fellow-patients used to 
lie awake to hear Martha praying. Then they began to ask her to 
speak to them during the day, and to tell them how it was that she 
contrived to be so happy and resigned. After some time it became the 
earnest desire of all die inmates of the hospital to get a bed beside 
Martha, and gradually she gathered near her aU that were good and 
holy, and anxious to be good and holy, in the place. She had a little 
mission of her own in her comer of a poorhouse hospital, and sent 
many a soul on before her to watch for her coming in heaven. 

Another still more touching case I know of is that of three poor 
women, who have their home in a mountain cabin in the north of 
Ireland. One is an aged creature, who has no relations, and cannot 



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756 Under DifficuUies. 

leave her bed, and but for the help ol her compaiuonB must have 
been taken to the poorhouse long ago. The other two are young : one 
is blind, and the other is deaf and dumb. The three are bound by no 
tiee of blood, and how they came together at first I do not know ; but 
with the help of each to each they manage to live, and are more happy 
and independent than many of their neighbours. The bedridden 
woman owns the cabin and shelters the other two, the blind girl knits, 
and the dumb girl works at other occupations, with the help and under 
the direction of her sister in misfortune. The two latter always go 
about together ; the dumb maiden is eyes to the blind maiden and she 
who is sightless is voice and intelligence to the mute. Blind Maiy has 
taught silent Kate to understand what she says to her by watching the 
movement of her lips, and, incredible as it seems, the understanding 
between them is so perfect that on Sunday when the priest speaks 
from the altar Kate has only to turn to Maxy and fix her keen eyee 
on tiie other's lips to learn from them at once what has been said. 
The blind and dumb girls, each according to her ability, tend and com* 
fort the old woman in the bed, who gives them shelter ; and thus these 
three patient creatures form together a little co-operative society of 
their own, which has certainly been established under difficulties. 

Such resolutely helpful souls, deterred by no disadvantage from 
working in charily towards a noble end, are hardly more great than 
the dauntless Poulain, a prisoner at Gisors, who shut into darkness in 
his dungeon made use of flie one ray of light which for an hour each day 
crept across a part of the wall and rested there. He watched persist- 
ently for the coming gleam, and with a rusty nail as chisel carved 
exquisite figures of saints and angels out of the stones in its trail for 
the greater glory of Gk)d and the consolation of his own mind, sorely 
tempted to despair. He is long dead and at rest, but the work of his 
faithful hand remains on the dungeon wall as a message and a lesson 
that all who run may read. 

On this text, Poulain and his rusty nail, a very sweet poetess of 
this day, Augusta Webster, writes : 

<'<01onelineM! Odarknefle!' to we wail. 
CiTiiig to life to gire we know not what, 
The hope not come, the ecttaiy forgot. 
The things we should hare had, and, needing, fail. 
Nor know what thing it was for wliich we ail, 
And like tired trayellers to an unknown spot, 
Pass listless, noting only < Yet 'tis not,' 
And count the ended daj an taipty tale. 

** Ah, me ! to linger on in dim repose, 

And feel the numbness orer hand and Uiought, 
And feel the silence in the heart, that growsi 

Ah. me ! to hare forgot the hope we sought. 

One ray qf light, and a toul lived and wrought, | 

And OH the prison walU a meuage foie** ^^ 



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Under Difficulties, 757 

In Antwerp there is an artist who, bom without arms, paints excel- 
lent pictures with a brush held between his toes ; and I have known a 
person obliged to pass a lifetime in a chair in one room, who yet knew 
more- of the beauties and wonders of foreign lands than many who 
are always travelling about. The poor woman, with a large family, 
who sent a tiny child to a convent door with two eggs as her contri- 
bution to the fund collected for the Pope some years ago, was, I think, 
a true member of the band who know how to surmount their difficul- 
ties. One cannot but think it a pity the Pope could not have had those 
fresh eggs for his breakfast, but, doubtless, the sum of twopence which 
they fetched is marked down somewhere in the records kept above, 
side by side with that older entry of the Scriptural widow's mite. 
Such another mother as the heroine of the two eggs was she who sent 
out the little girl I met one morning, in a lonely country place, carry- 
ing a tin of milk to a sick neighbour. Knowing that the little maid 
with the pinched, half-starved face carrying the tin was one of nine 
children including a baby and that the only cow of the family was 
nearly dry, I asked her how the household could part with all the milk 
they possessed. '' Sure, she's sick, an' the thirst is on her V* was all 
the answer I could get. The need of the sufPering neighbour was 
held of more importance than the hardly lees urgent want at home. 
The old lady of slender purse who would have flowers in her bonnet 
and made them out of blue tea paper, and the good wife who was 
determined to have white roses out of season on her cottage walls, and 
planted clean egg-sheUs well among the green to make an effect from 
the distant road, do not make a very distinguished figure in our list of 
instances, yet, perhaps, these persons had in them the germs of the 
true spirit of making the best of things, if they had only known how 
to develop it thoroughly. There is no doubt that life is full of com- 
pensations, and that happiness, and the means of conferring it on 
others, power, and all it may achieve of usefulness to oneself and 
to humanity, lie nearer to every hand, even the most maimed and 
bruised, than is commonly dreamed of in our work-a-day philo- 
sophy. Half the world does not know how the other half strives 
and attains its ends. Wheat-ears and whin-chats live through the 
winter on wild heaths and in warrens ; and who knows what supports 
themP The hard helpful soul finds a way not only to exist, 
but to work in a world of denial, and in an atmosphere that kills what 
is less enduring than itself. And of all creatures who struggle in 
various ways to attain to something under difficulties, the one who out 
of the depths of his own affliction gives glory to Ood and help to his 
neighbour is the one of all others to be crowned. 

In some of the smaller West Indian islands, where neither streams 
nor rivers flow to fertilise the land or to slake the thirst of the crea- 
tures whose lot is cast in so strange a region, certain tall trees are 

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758 The MonKs Prophecy. 

found standing lonely in the bosom of a mountain, their headB wrapt 
in miBts and clouds. In their high, barren place they absorb a mois* 
ture from above, which drips and nms from their branches, streaming 
thence into the plains and rendering them habitable for man. To 
them on their forlorn rock are due the flowers that delight the children 
in the valleys and decorate the labourer's home. Exceptional sufferers, 
who are helpful and hope-giving to others in their own painful isolation 
always remind me of these beneficent and solitary trees. 



THE MONK'S PROPHECT. 

A TALB. 
BY ATTIB o'b&IEN. 

CHAPTER XXin. 

COMPLICATIONS. 

The days passed away. They all fell back into the old routinet. 
Frank worked hard at his pictures, Jim keeping hia studio at Mrs. 
Barry's, in perfect order. Ida left every morning to attend her pupila^ 
and oftener than ever went to the Almshouse diurch and played the 
organ, occasionally improvising airs sorrowful and despairing enough 
to be the outcome of one of the foolish virgins' spiritual desolation. « 

Sometimes Sydney sat beneath, praying and listening to her 8ing> 
ing, until her eyes were filled with tears. " Your voice makes me feel 
heartbroken, Ida," she said to her one day, ** you always think of our 
Lord as suffering, while I think of Him as rejoicing, and yet you are 
gayer than I am. I wonder why we think of Him differently." 

" I always think of Him as wounded and despised," answered 
Ida : " sufferings seem to bring Him within my reach. When I pio- 
ture Him in eternal glory, though I rejoice in it, oh ! He seems so far 
away from me, so far away." 

Miss White had certain misgivings about Ida, which, however, she 

kept, as she had kept many an unbreathed sigh, within her heart. 

She suspected that there had been something between her and Eustace 

"M^cMahon; — ^at least that he admired her. Their imrestrained inter- 

se had given her some uneasiness, but what could she do ? She 



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The MonKs Prophecy. 759 

was with her brother^ and it would be absurd to warn a girl against 
a man simply because he was attraotive. Then she was not a girl to 
lose her head because an agreeable man was attentive to her; and if he 
did care for her, and win her to be his wife — ^well, that, indeed, would 
be happiness. He was such a fine fellow. Father Moran, who knew 
him since he was a boy, praised him warmly. Ida's life of repression 
and toil would be over, and she would be lifted again into her own 
dass which she was so calculated to adorn. The little lady had too 
much delicacy and good sense to speak to the girl on the subject, and 
sometimes even she was doubtful if she had any cause for being 
troubled about her, she seemed to be in such good spirits. But as the 
days rolled on after their return, she noticed a change in her, un- 
apparent to less lovingly observant eyes. There was a little look of 
pain about her lips, except when they were laughing, and the laugh 
often died suddenly away. She occasionally fell into deep thought, 
from which she would rouse herself abruptly, and stand up to busy 
herself with some occupation. 

So the time slipped by, until the shadowy days of soft September 
stole upon the land, giving it a graver beauty, as though the conscious- 
ness of decay and death had subdued its summer smiles, and added 
sadness to their expression. The Italian Opera Company came to 
Dublin, and the second night Frank proposed to the girls that they 
should go see '' the great and tender Faust," which was to the repre- 
sentation. They joyfully assented, and when the hour arrived, they 
were seated in their places, looking down upon stalls and boxes, as 
fhey gradually Med with a variegated multitude. 

'* Ida, look !" exclaimed Sydney, '* there is Eustace and Mrs. 
Hassett. I wish he would look up ; shan't I scold him for not coming 
to see us." 

Ida looked beneath and saw him sitting between his sister and a 
very handsome girl, splendidly dressed, who had gems flashing in her 
soft brown hair, on her breast and white arms, and who was laughing 
and talking to him with evident pleasure. 

''That must be Miss Burton, the heiress," said Sydney. ''Isn't 
she lovely ? And there is Minnie Hassett, quite a young lady." 

" That's a fine-looking fellow talking to her," remarked Frank ; 
he is a captain in the Lancers. What an air Mrs. Hassett has ! as if 
she were conscious forfy centuries were looking down on her." 

Ida withdrew her gaze and fixed her eyes upon the stage ; but 
when the curtain was raised, those resolute eyes were so dim that she 
could not discern the aged form of the dissatisfied Faust, or the tempt- 
ing vision of love and youth created by Mephistopheles to lure him to 
perdition. She did not look beneath again, but followed the woes of 
the gentle Marguerite, listening with shrinking ears to the demon's 
hollow laughter, as he mocked at the emotion that to her was true and 



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76o The ManKs Prophecy. 

sacred ; until the ruined maiden lay on the prieon^bed, like a soiled 
and broken lily, so wofully different from the f air» pure girl who had 
emerged from the churoh with the divine benediction resting on her 
golden head. Pitiable change ! wrought by sin, under the name of 
love — sin that came to her in the guise of an angel of light, and left 
her stained and unspeakably dishonoured — so sad a sight that angels 
well might weep. Could she dream those lips that swore undying lore 
could be as false as those [which prompted him? Could those eyes^ 
which to her reflected heaven, lure her unconscious steps from God to 
deepest shame P He, who absorbed all the tenderness of her womanly 
nature, as the sun absorbs the dew from flower-hearts ; in whom she 
trusted with a perfect trust, and whose strong right arm she looked on 
as her shield and buckler against all sin 'and sorrow. Love, what 
has not been done in thy name by false man and woman, who know 
not what it is to love. 

When they emerged from the crowd that poured out of the theatre, 
they saw Mrs. Hassett*s carriage drive away, and Eustace standing on 
the pathway, looking eagerly about him. In a few moments he per- 
ceived them. 

<< Eustace, you ill-natured fellow, why did you not come to see 
us?" exclaimed Sydney ; ^'I suppose you are becoming grand, like 
Mrs. Hassett.*' 

'' No, you virago," he replied, as he shook hands with thenu 
'* Don't fire at an innocent man. I only returned from England last 
evening. I had to go over on business for Wyndill, the veiy day after 
we parted. I intended hunting you up this morning, but the truth is, 
a good part of the day was gone when I got out of bed." 

'^ Well, you are not so bad ; be sure to come to-monow, though.*' 

" Will you call round to me at Mrs. Barry's ?" said the artisU 
'^ You'll find me there any time up to five o'clock." 

'' We were admiring your heiress, Eustace," Sydney said, as they 
walked on, " she is very pretty." 

''She is," he replied; ''one of the handsomest girls I ever met, 
and seems to be a nice girl, too." 

" Go in and win, my boy," said Frank ; " fortune seems to make 
a favourite of you. You can give me a decent order by-and*by, and 
I'll paint the young woman so that you'll prefer the picture to the 
original." 

" Shall I see you to-morrow P" said Eustace, in a low tone, to 
Ida. 

" Not at all likely," was the answer, " except you choose tocall at 
the houses where I goad little children through musioal ways." 

" What hour are you done with them P" 

"I dislike being asked questions about what concerns myself 
alone," she answered, coldly. 



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The Mones Prophecy. 761 

'* Your ooncemB are mine/' he saidL ** Don't think yon can shake 
me off, as though I were a butterfly." 

He took her hand and drew it within his arm. 

" Are you not afraid you will be seen?'' she asked, with a mocking 
laugh. 

He flung away her hand again, with a passionate 'exclamation : 
" Ida,'' he said, after a few moments, ** ndther of us is very even- 
tempered, I believe ; since I began to love you, we have done nothing 
but fight and wound each other. Don't nui^e a wreck of our lives." 

" I should be very sony to make a wreck of my life," she replied; 
"my instincts are not quite so pagan; and I certainly do not intend to 
make a wreck of yours." 

" You will do so if you reject my love. Ida," he pleaded, drawing 
her hand again within his arm, ''you will listen to me yet; you 
cannot have so cold a heart that my deep affection cannot touch it. 
Listen to me." 

" There is no use my in listening," she answered, in a voice that 
trembled slightly, and she withdrew her hand. " It is much better 
for you to take my decision as final. Ooing on in this way can only 
cause pain and humiliation to us both." 

''You have come too far, MoMahon," said the artist, as they 
stopped at the comer of the street that led on to the Almshouse. 

" Be sure to come to see us to-morrow, Eustace," Sydney said. 

The party separated. Eustace lighted a cigar and walked slowly 
home to Mrs. Hassetf s, who asked, with some irritation, what kept 
h\vn out so long. Oaptain Butler was sitting beside the heiress, and 
just rose to take his leave as he entered. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

HBS. HABSETT's 8X78FICIONS. 

Mrs. Hassett who had some, and who flattered herself that she had 
great, powers of observation, was beginning to give a considerable 
amount of thought to the affairs and "behaviour of her younger 
brother. It gave her intense annoyance that he would not pay his 
addresses to her husband's ward, Miss Burton, who was heiress to 
broad lands, was worth her weight in gold, and was besides of un- 
doubted rank and position. 

Eustace and she seemed to be on very excellent terms, but their 
relations were too frank and unsentimental to be at all pleasing to 
Mrs. Hassett, or to indicate any movement that might reward her 
sisterly interest ; and he was evidently not in the best spirits lately ; 
he was absent, and sometimes rather irritable in his temper, which 

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762 The Monk's Prophecy. 

was certainly a new phase in hie eonduot ; and he used to wander off 
in an unaooountable manner, axid give no information as to how or 
where he spent his time. She oame to the oondusion that Sydney 
Ormsby was at the bottom of the mystery. Eustace and she had had 
warm words about her, when he was looking for her on his return 
from the West Indies. He had afterwards told her of the girl's en- 
gagement, which gave her extreme satisfaction, for she concluded that 
it would be the means of lifting her off the family's hands, and save 
Eustace from an entanglement which, she always looked on as just the 
disagreeable event most certain to occur ; but now, here he was, in a 
kind of melancholy madness, after returning from the country where 
he met her. Well, she would find out about It, if she could, and with- 
out any delay. Mrs. Hassett was a woman of action, and accordingly 
on this particular day, in the end of Sejytember, she got into a cab, 
and ordered the driver to proceed to the Biver Almshouse. Gather- 
ing up her trailing skirts, she entered the grounds. She paused ir- 
resolute for a moment, then wtet on, and knodced at the door of the 
first house. She was directed to Miss Oimsby's abode, and having 
applied for admittance there, found herself face to face with the dis- 
turber of her thoughts. 

" Miss Ormsby," she said, coldly extending her hand, which was 
as coldly taken by the surprised girl ; '' it is some time since I have 
seen you." 

Such an undeniable fact required neither contradiction nor confir- 
mation, so Sydney merely bowed. 

" I was surprised you did not call after your mother's death," said 
Mrs. Hassett ; — *' I did not know where to inquire after you." 

<' It would have been more surprising if I did," replied Sydney^ 
quietiy. 

** I have had a letter from Mrs. Wyndill, about which I wished to 
speak to you," said Mrs. Hassett. 

They were standing in the hall. Mrs. Hassett's plan of operations 
was to pretend ignorance of the engagement, and watch any effect the 
name of Eustace might produce. 

<< Miss White,'' said Sydney, opening the sitting-room door, '' maj 
I bring in Mrs. Hassett ? — she wiE^es to speak to me." 

<< Certainly, dear," replied the littie lady, rising to leave the room. 

*^ Please do not go," Mrs. Hassett said, in her most gradoos 
manner. *' What I have to say can be said before Miss Ormsby's 
chosen friend." 

" She has, indeed, been a friend to me," answered Sydney. 

Miss White placed a chair for the visitor near the fire, and resumed 
her own. 

*< When Miss Ormsby left her lodgings, without sending me her 
address," began Mrs. Hassett, in an explanatory voice, ''I could not 

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The Monks Prophecy. 763 

leazn what beoame of her till I heard she was at the the Hut, some 
lime ago." 

" She remained for soTeral weeks in the lodgings, after her sad 
afiSiotion/' replied Miss White; ''but they became veiy unfit for a 
young girL When Ibeoame acquainted withthedroumstancesltook 
her under my own protection." 

'' Very kind of you, indeed. Had she made me aware of her.posi- 
tion, of ooursci I should have seen after her. I have had a letter from 
Urs. Wyndill; she speaks of being able to take her under her charge 
soon. Would it not be better if she were placed in a convent in the 
meantime?" 

*' Oh, no," said Sydney, turning scarlet 

"You would not like to go to school? That is strange : the world 
cannot have so many attractions for you, and you are quite young yet. 
Mrs. Wyndill would like to have you well-educated, as you will be a 
companion for her children." 

" Sydney is vexy well educated," said Miss White, '' and very 
comfortably at leastshe seems to be perfectly satisfied where she is." 

'* Tes, I have no doubt ; I am sure you are very kind. Tet I can- 
not but think my sister would prefer another arrangement." 

"I have written to Mrs. Wyndill to explain everything," said 
Sydney, nervously. " I won't leave Miss White." 

"In fact, Mnk Hassett," Miss White said gravely, "Sydney 
prefers to cast her lot with those who were happily able to protect her 
in her need. Her mother's friends in Dublin did not seem to be in- 
terested in her." 

" I was not aware she was in any need. She should have applied 
to me." 

" But you seemed to have forgotten us," answered Sydney, quickly ; 
" and Mrs. Bany told you mother was dying. I was desolate until 
they took care of me." Her eyes filled with tears, and she leaned her 
head against Miss White's shoulder. 

" They! " said Mrs. Hassett " Who are your other friends?" 

" It is as well you should know about Sydn^*s prospects," replied 
Miss White, " she has accepted the proposal of one in every way 
worthy of her, and is engaged to him." 

" Indeed !— and who is the gentleman, may 1 ask P" 

" ^, L'Estrange, an artist" 

" With all due deference to you, Miss White, may not this have 
been a little premature ? Of course, it will deprive her of the protec- 
tion of her other friends." 

"I had no friends when I was alone in the world but Miss 
White, Ida, and Mrs. Bany," said Sydney, 

" Ida !— and who is Ida r 

" Miss L'Estrange, the sister of— of " 

ToL. X. No. 114. 48 i^ f 

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764 The Monk?s Prophecy. 

" Yes, I understand." — Mrs. Hassett felt as if the mystery was be- 
ginning to unravel. — " Well, I have only to offer my congratulations, 
and wish you a happy termination to your engagement, though I must 
say, I think engagements a great mistake, men and women are so 
little to be depended on." 

"I am happy to say that I believe Sjrdney and her betrothed 
can trust each otiier," said Miss White. 

'' They must have very imusual natures, then," answered Mrs. 
Hassett ; " I always see people getting tired of protracted romances. 
Eustace told me you were at the Hut this summer. You found it dull, 
did you not ? — ^If you two were alone there." 

"We enjoyed it very much,'* said Sydney. '^Miss L'Estrange 
was with us." 

'' And Mr. L'Estrange, of course ; it must have been delightfuL 
Do you often see Eustace?" 

** Yes, very often. Eustace is always ilie same," answered Sydney. 

** Oh, he has nothing to do but pay visits, and moon about," said 
Mrs. Hassett. While she was speaking, the door opened and Ida 
entered. Mrs. Hassett glanced at her, and said to herself, *' Here is 
the snare set for Eustace." 

The girl stood irresolute, with her hand on the handle of the door. 

" dome in, dear," said Miss White. 

" This is " Mrs. Hassett paused, and looked at Sjrdney^ inter- 
rogatively. 

** Mrs. Hasset, Miss L'Estrange," said Sydney. 

Ida bowed and Mrs. Hassett gave a patronising nod. The girl's 
first impulse was to retreat, but the moment she saw the visitor it 
flashed across her mind that it was something connected with herself 
and Eustace that occasioned the call, and she determined to face the 
enemy. 

**AjbI was sa3ang, Eustace has nothing to do but to pay visits," 
continued Mrs. Hassett ; '' idle young men are a nuisance. I only 
hope he won*t get into any mischief , as they usually do." 

" Mr. McMahon does not seem to be a young man likely to get into 
any unworthy way%," said Ifiss White. 

"Oh, I daresay not consciously, but he is extremely thought- 
less ; and young men will be young men until tiiie end of time." 

Mrs. Hassett took her leave, feeling angry and disturbed, and as 
if she were somehow at a disadvantage ; but her most definite emo- 
tion was a sensation of antagonism towards the tall proud girl, who 
had returned her chiUing bow with a salutation as haughty as her own. 



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The Monies Pfophecy. 765 



GHAFFEB XXV. 

A 8UPDBV 8X7 MM VS. 

The artist worked unremittingly at his labour. He knew that heluKl 
got a wonderful ohance, and that if he eucceeded in pleasing Lord Rath- 
moylan his fortune was secured. He had all the sketches ooosiderably 
advanced, and had finished one, which he wished to forward to his 
patron. He wrote to the nobleman, and, after a few days, receired 
an answer from his secretary, desiring him to forward the picture to 
England ; he did so, and waited anxiously for some token of approivd 
following up the acknowledgment of its safe arrivaL He was be- 
coming anxious at the delay, when, one morning, he was shocked and 
astounded at reading the following paragraph: — "On the 4th of 
October, at Glenham Oastle, in the fiftieth year of his age, St.- John 
Butler, Earl of Bathmoylan, Bathmoylaa Forest, Co. Glare, Ireland. 
The deceased nobleman was a kind landlord, a great patron of 
the arts, a good man in eveiy relation of life. He had large posses- 
sions in England, Wales, and Ireland, which latter place he visited 
some months ago. He married, in 1854, Margaret, daughter of Lord 
Osboume, and died without issue. The title is in abeyance. It is 
supposed there will be at least four claimants for the earldom, one of 
whom claims descent from the daughter of the third earl." 

So here were his hopes blasted. His first thought was one of 
regret for the man who had been so kind to him ; the next was one 
prompted by self-interest. It was a disappointment : — a door that 
seemed to open into peace and plenty was shut in his face again. 
However, he was better off than before, and he had only to work 
away and do the best he could ; but a littie look of care deepened a 
few lines upon his forehead, which Sydney, with love's clear vision^ 
quickly perceived. She drew her finger along them with a half smile. 

" Ah, Frank," she said, " don't give yourself such a venerable 
brow." 

" Well, my meeting with him had one good effect on my life, at 
all events," answered the artist. '* Only for it I would not have had 
the courage* to bind you to me, and perhaps you would be gone from 
me by this." 

Sydney shook her head with a doubtful smile, and gave no great 
thought to the future, as long as she was with Frank in the present. 

lliere was a golden harvest to be gleaned by the lawyers ; for the 
hdr to the earldom, with the enormous wealth of the Rathmoylans was 
to be looked for; muniment-rooms had to be searched, and dusty 
records of the long past brought again to the light of day. 

Mr. Hassett, the barrister, and Mr. Oale, the attorney, stood in the 
haunted room of Sathmoylan Castle. The former was looking out of 

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7 66 The MonVs Prophecy. 

the 'vrindow, Bmoldng a cigar ; the latter waa lodung over the ooatenti 
of the ebony cabinet. 

" I wonder what xnania have people for ooUeoting naeleBe papen," 
said the attorney, testily; '' there aeems to be nothing here but moti^- 
eaten mbbiflh.'' 

<'31iing8 are looking well for Captain Bailer," answered Mr. Haasett 
« By JovOy what a ohanoe.'' 

"Bid you ever hear of the old j^fopheey," said lb. Qale, " aboot 
Earl (George's younger son f 

''Yes, Mrs. Gale told me all |aboat it]; we don't look for the ful- 
filment of prophecies in those 'matter-d-faet days. Well, I suppose 
we can make an afSidavit that there is no document to be found here 
that can throw any light on the suooession." 
Mr. Hassett threw away his cigar and stretched himself. 

*' There seems to be a cavity here»'' said Mr. Gale, pulling at atiny 
handle. He gave another vigorous pull, and a little drawer came 
away in his hands. He took up a dight roll of crombled paper and 
opened it. " Faith, here's the prophecy itself," he said ; <* what a time 
it turns up.'' He opened another bit of paper; an eager look came 
into his face; he caught up another morsel, placed them togetiier» 
smoothed them on the table, and glanced rapidly over them. He 
struck them with his hand, exclaiming : *' By heaven, there was truth in 
the prophecy : here is the marriage certificate of Charles Butler and 
Maud Morley." 

-' You don't say so !" said Mr. Hassett, joining him at the table. 

" Not a doubt of it. Bead for yourself. ^Diere is a fortune for 
some one in that torn paper." 

'' By Jove," said Mr. Hassett, examining it curiously, *< torn 
across, and looks as if it had been stained with blood or wine." 

** And listen to this," interrupted Mr, Ghde, who had been trying 
to decipher another paper, ''here is the explanation for you: *My 
eon Oharles died this morning from the bursting of a blood vesseL He 
showed me the certificate of his marriage with my wife's servants His 
blood fell on it, so I cannot destroy it; but I will never acknowledge 
it, nor any child of his. — {Signed) Bathxotlak.' " 

'' And here is the prophecy as if it had been wafered to something 
and torn off," said Mr. Hassett. 

« When right Beef Jight, Maud Morley's Uood 
Shall run in the hein of Bathmojlan Wood ; 
The fruit will live, though the flowers decay, 
And right sees light in a coming day." 

" This will keep the property in law for years," said Mr. Qale. 
<< Perhaps there was no issue by that marriage," answered Mr. 
assett, hopefully. 

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The Manias Prophecy. 767 

'' Ah, but there was, though. Mother/' he contiiiuec^ as the house- 
keeper entered the room, '' don't you remember hearing often that 
Gharles Butler had a son — the boy the old story was about V 

'* There was no doubt of it, I belieye." 

*' And no one erer heard what became of him ?" 

*' Never; he disappeared when he was about sixteen years old. 
Why do you ask?" 

'* Because his descendants have to be looked for. If he have left 
one, he or she is the heir we are seeking. There is Charles Butler's 
marriage certifioate." 

''No one ever doubted that Father Ambrose numiedthem," said 
Mrs. Gale. 

" Ah, Father Ambrose's marriage would be of little use ; but this 
is the certificate of another marriage in the Protestant Church." 

"Ah, dear, sotheoldfriarwasright;they were legally married ?" 
said Mrs. Gale. 

" Captain Butler has no chance of getting possession, in the face of 
this document^" said Mr. Hassett, " at least for a long time. Mrs. 
Gale, you must leam every old woman's story in the country about 
that boy. What name was he known by ?" 
" Charles Moylan, I heard." 

" Well, his movements must be traced. We must advertise and 
make searches. Perhaps there may be letters in Glenham Castle 
throwing light on the business ; — ^though it is not likely his grandfather 
would preserve them. But we must only do our best." 

The barrister rubbed his hands, not ill-pleased at the turn things 
had taken, for they were assuming a profitable aspect ; though he 
remembered certain speculations confided to him by the wife of his 
bosom, who was most attentive to detain Butler, hoping that contact 
with her pretty daughter, Winifred, might wake in him ''the strong 
necessity of loving." 

The unavoidable dday might prove a profitable one ; it would 
certainly put money in the lawyer's purse, and the lengthened inter- 
course between the officer and the girl might have the desired effect. 
It was more than probable that Captain Butler would eventually 
come in for the property. It was but a mere chance that the stream 
of the direct line which had shallowed anddisappeared into the bowels 
of the earth, so to speak, would be found again on the surface, and 
traced to its source. The two gentlemen agreed as to the best thing to be 
done. They ^uld examine all the papers in the residences appertaining 
to the family, advertise for the children or grandchildren of Charles 
Butler, commonly called Charles Moylan, and proceed to elucidate the 
mystery of succession at their leisure, with their fellow-labourers. 



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THE CTJLTDEE OF THE WILL. 

rB oultivatLon of the intellect has many patrons and advocates in 
our day. The materials of human knowledge in many depart- 
ments of thought are accumulating. The lapse of time by the nature 
of the case is adding to the stores of history. Physical science is every 
day opening up new regions for investigation; mathematicians are 
making new deductions from principles long established ; philosophy 
endeavours to unravel the unsolved problems of earlier ages. Theo- 
logy, too, at least within the precincts of the Oatholic Church, is 
engaged in elucidating the truths of faith, and deducing practical 
consequences in the sphere of morals. Amidst this general activity 
of intellect, it may not be uninteresting to our readers to consider some 
of the advantages that are attendant upon the culture of the wilL 

The perfection and excellence of man in this life are dependent 
upon the state and condition of his will. The great philosopher of 
antiquity tells us that the unqualified title of '^ good " applies only* to 
those whose wills are in a liigh state of culture. A man is said to be 
a good sculptor when, by his skill and ^mowledge of art, he is able to 
impart to lifeless stone the features and characteristics of a living 
organism. A man is said to be a good orator when he is able to bring 
human language to bear upon the emotions, the intelligence, and the 
actions of his fellow-men. The painter is said to be good when, by 
the judicious adjustment of lines and colouring, he accurately portrays 
the face of nature, or the scenes of daily life. But we do not pro> 
nounce these artists to be good men until we have formed an estimate 
of their moral qualities, or, in other words, of those dispositions and 
habits that reside in the will. Thus we find that the common language 
of mankind, in this as in many other instances, opens up to us the 
salutary fountains of truth, and directs our attention to the necessity 
of acquiring those hidden and unseen riches which elevate us in the 
scale of being. 

All men are desirous of their own individual excellence and perfec- 
tion. It is true that this impulse towards self-exaltation is the source 
of many errors and follies; but these accidental drawbacks do not 
succeed in proving that the instinct itself is reprehensible. We do not 
blame the mother for appealing to the self-love of the child, when she 
is trying to correct its faults. Eeproach is one great instrument of 
human improvement ; audits efficacy is derived from the appeal which 
it makes to the love of excellence inherent in the heart of man. *' No 
man," says a great sfdnt and philosopher, '*wiU become what he 
desires to be unless he dislikes himself as he is ; '* and the parent or 
guardian unconsciously applies this principle when urging the young 

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The CuUure of the Will. 7^9 

to throw more energy into their studies, and to profit more assiduonsly 
of the various opportunities which Providence and Giroumstances have 
thrown in their way. The faults of the young are laid before them 
in reproachful and striking terms, in order that, convinced of their 
deficiendee, they may endeavour to supply them by industry and 
labour. 

The study, then, of our own hearts and our own habitual line of 
action towards our fellow-men coQibine to show that we are, all of us, 
animated by a great desire of our own personal excellence. It is not 
wise, even if it were possible, to repress this tendency ; but it is of the 
highest importance for the conduct of life that we should direct it into 
the proper channels; and this we do when we subordinate all our 
pursuits and energies to the cultivation of our wills. In this sphere 
of labour we can never err by excess. If we set our hearts upon 
material wealth, the pursuit of it may involve us in many evils ; it may 
lead us to be hard-hearted towards others ; it may dose our hands 
in regard of those who have claims on our generodty ; it may lead 
us to be penurious towards oursdves in the supply of our own physical 
wants; it may lead us to disregard the education and training of 
those whom F^vidence has confided to our care. We may, in our 
unlimited desire of riches, be led into acts of dishonesty towards 
those whose temporal concerns have been entrusted to us, and in our 
hasty and headlong endeavours to become rich, we may be precipitated 
into a collision with.the laws of civil sodety. 

These examples may serve to show the necesdty of giving a proper 
direction to our love of pre-eminence. If, instead of striving to surpass 
others in wealth, our efforts had been directed to the acquirement of 
those qualities which constitute the yeiy substance of human excellence, 
our efforts would have been attended with success, and we should be 
masters of possesdons altogether independent of fortuitous events. 

It may, perhaps, occur as an objection to some minds that the 
humility so much advocated by Ohristian teachers seems to be incon- 
sistent with the pursuit of that true excellence at which eveiy man 
should aim. A very brief condderation will be sufficient to dispose 
of this objection. Christian doctrine has never condemned the impulse 
implanted by nature which leads to the pursuit of our own self- 
improvement. On the contrary, the aim of Christian teaching has 
been to devate man, and to turn the dedre of his own excellence into 
fruitful and profitable channels. The very virtue of humility, which 
lies at the root of Christian practice, is a moral excellence of an 
exceedingly high order, and the more we advance in it, the more we 
are exalted in the perfection which is appropriate to man. Thus 
reason and revelation combine to show that we are always safe when 
we are directing our energies to our own moral improvement ; and 
that, while in the pursuit of materiai or even intellectual advantages 

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770 AfmaAloisi. 

we are liable to incur many dangers, we oannot fail to reap eoiid 
fruit when we apply steady and persevering effort to the culture of 
thewiU, 

W. H. 



ANNA ALOIBI. 



LET us tell briefly the stoxy of an Italian maiden, a sketch of whose 
life, written in her own sonorous Tuscan, has chanced to fall into 
our hands. Indeed it is more than a chance which has won for this 
signorina the distinction, such as it is, of being thus introduced to the 
notice of certain inhabitants of what must hare seemed to her (if she 
ever thought of Ireland at all) a remote island in the northern seas. 
Except for a personal reason, of idiich a hint may be given before the 
end, she would hardj^ have been the theme of a paper, however dight, 
in a journal like ours. For her career was marked by no startling 
incidents, and she had no pretensions to even the promise of literaxy 
fame, sudi as might be claimed for one of her countiywomen, Bosa 
Ferrusei,* whose mother, at least, imagined she had brought into the 
world an Italian Eugenie de Ou6rin. 

She was bom at Pontecorvo, on the 25th day of March, 1850. As 
that was the feast of the Annunciation, the child was baptised under 
the full-sounding names of Anna MariA Annunziata Grazia, or Anne 
Mary Grace, of the Annunciation. Out of this f onnidable array d 
names, we have selected the first as the child's Christian-name and 
the second-last, not the last^ as the surname— not because '' Aloisi" 
reminds one of St. Aloyaius, and has a sweet sound of its own, as well 
as sweet associations, but because the last of a set of foreign surnames 
is not the chief one. Thus the historian of the Society of Jesus, M. 
Cr6tineau-Joly, is called f amiliariy, not Joly, but Or^tineau ; and the 
head of the Mastai-Ferretti family of Pio Nono* is Oount Mastai, not 
Count Ferretti. 

Anna belonged to a patrician family, we are told, which, 
however, was as populous as if it were a mere plebeian house- 
hold; for, besides two baby brothers who died in tender yeao, 
an elder brother and sister survive tiie subject of this sketch, 
and also two brothers and two sisters younger than she. Nay, tiie 
family stocdc was like one of thoee trees on which you see the young 
leaves coming out before the f diage of the previous season has wholly 
withered ; for, besides Anna's father and mother, her grandfaflier and 

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Anna AMst. 771 

hn giandmoiher flonxished oil in hale old age; and there was also a 
grand-aunt, older still, revered more than all for her years and her 
sanctity. This venerable lady, nearly ninety years of age, was Anne's 
chief teacher; as the child was not allowed, on account of her delioacy, 
to live in the boarding-school of the Sisters of Oalvaiy, but only to 
frequent their day-schod, except during the time of her preparation 
for First Communion. From her pragia the little girl learned that 
love for the poor and sick which was one of her charaoteristios ever 
after. 

It was Anna's own fault fhat her story does not share in the 
pathetic interest inspired by another Italian maiden, whose name we 
have already linked with hers. The betrothal of Bosa Ferrucd makes 
the account of her early death read likealittle tragedy of a veiy gentle 
and Ohristian kind. As early as her fifteenth year, and later on, 
during her residence in Borne, there was more than one eager aspirant 
for the hand of the Signorina Aloisi Masella; but she looked on 
herself as the pr(me$9a ipoBa of the Heavenly Bridegroom, and she 
sweetly but very firmly put aside all such overtures. 

The brother of Anna's father had embraced the ecdeeiastical state, 
and, in 1866, was Auditor to the Papal Nuncio at Paris, when a visit 
to his aged parents first gave him an opportunity of becoming ac- 
quainted with the noble qualities of his niece. In one of his letters 
to her, which, after her death, were found carefully preserved, he 
wrote in December, 1865 : — ** You have all the dispositions for becom- 
ing holy ; ask, then, of our Lord the grace te become so, and devote 
yourself earnestly to this object." 

In 1866, her grand-aunt Theresa died a joyful death on the day 
which she had foretold — the feast of the glorious patriarch St. Joseph, 
patron of happy deaths. This was the first time that death came near 
our young friend; and he came in so amiable a guise that, whereas 
she had previoudy shrunk from tiie thought of death, she now fell in 
love with Death. ''Love death," she wrote at the head of some of her 
copybooks. She had never read Coleridge's little poem, where the 
''three fast friends'' of the good and great man are said to be " him- 
self, his Maker, and the angel Death." 

It is hard to tmderstand the fury of impious men against modest 
and holy convents, like that of the Sisters of Calvary at Pontecorvo. 
Yet, in the troubled times in Italy, the poor nuns were driven from 
their home ; and, amongst their pupils, our Anna Aloisi with her 
younger sisters, Agatha and Emily, found a refuge with the Oamaldo- 
lesenuns, on the Esquiline, in Bome, till this convent in ite turn waa 
suppressed in the name of Liberty and Progress. Though more 
mature than her companions, Anna was the humblest and most dodle 
of all. Later on, her spiritual director in Bavaria, in a letter written 
after her death, marked out as her prominent virtues, faith, umplicttTi 
and docility. Digitized by Google 



77*^ AnnaAloisi. 

Her delicate health obliged her, after a year, to return to her 
mother's fond care, and to defer the fulfilment of her deeire for a 
cloietered life; for each seemed her vocation at this period, though 
afterwards her heart tamed rather to the Orders that devote themselves 
to the care of little children and of the sick. By way of compensation 
for her disappointment, the earnest young soul, no doubt after due 
deliberation, and under proper authority, made a private consecration 
of herself to Ood. Hidden behind a picture of the Sacred Heart in 
her room, before which she was wont to pour out her heart in fervent 
prayer, a little note was discovered after her death, addressed in all 
simplicity " To the Saered Meart of Jwm!' On being opened by the 
confessor of the departed saint, it was found to begin with these words: 
''My Love! I love Thee more th^n myself. From the month of 
October, 1867, 1 consecrated to Thee my virginity." Her life at this 
time is thus described by her biographer — ^if such a title may be given 
to the author of an unpretentious sketch, which bears no publisher's 
name, and seems never to have been given to the public : — " PiouSy 
docile, simple, obedient; she pleased God and men; and the esteem 
and affection of these did not hinder or retard her progress in the 
love of Him." Her devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus was ex- 
traordinary ; and she had the tenderest affection for the Blessed 
Virgin, whom she called ^^ mamma mia, la mia h$Ua mamma^'* and 
towards whom she practised all the year round those special practises 
of piety which even pious Christians confine to the month of Maiy. 
She had a great devotion to her namesake, the Blessed Virgin's mother ; 
and, in honour of her whom her faithful Bretons call with affectionate 
familiarity, **la bonne vieiUe,*' she got leave to invite to dinner on 
the feast of St. Anne some poor old women, who did not go home 
empty-handed. In fact she had a taste for old people ; and, whm in 
her own despite, she attended social entertainments, she was noticed 
for separating from what might seem more fitting company, and 
devoting herself to the society of some lady of advanced years, espe- 
cially if she seemed forgotten and neglected. 

In May, 1877, Anna's kinsman, Monsignor Aloisi, was made Arch- 
bishop of Neocaesarea, in partihus Infidelium^ and Nuncio-Apostolic at 
Munich. After many chuiges of plan it was finally decided that 
Anna should accompany her uncle to Bavaria : for it was fated that 
she might say in the end, like Gregory YEI. and Father Gury, 
** Morior in ezilioJ* 

We cannot give, in even the most summary way, the minute traits 
of her prudence and her piety and all the testimonies to the singular 
sweetness and nobility of her character which have been gathered by 
the pious zeal of the writer of the littie memoir which has come to us 
from Lisbon. To Portugal the Archbishop of Neocaesarea was soon 
^oved ; but his holy niece was not to accompany him thither. 

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Anna Aloisu 773 

As the head of her reverend uncle's household, she had abundant 
opportunities of displaying her prudence and many solid yirtues. 
There are few better tests of a true Christian lady than her relations 
with her servants. Young as she was, Anna Aloisi possessed the art 
of securing the faithful and diUgent servioe of her domestics, while 
discharging towards them all the duties of a kind and considerate 
mistress. 

She had many times renewed her efforts to be admitted as a Sister 
of Charity, or among the Little Sifters of the Poor ; but her health 
was still an obstacle ; and, as the Abbess of Sant Antonio at Home, had 
predicted, she was never to be more than a " numaoa di destdmOf^* 
a religious only in desire. In her case GKkL took the will for the deed. 
But if she was not allowed to abide in the holy sisterhood in life, after 
death she was received as a member of a religious community. She 
had visited, a few weeks before, the convent of the Sisters of Poor 
Schools, and, when shown their graveyard, she said, " I should like 
to be buried here." Her wish, not remembered till all the arrange- 
ments had been completed, was carried out exactly. Over her tomb 
are simply engraved the two dates of her earthly career, its beginning 
and its ending : << Ifitta Panteeorvo die 25 Martii 1 850 ; de/uncta ManaMi, 
die 13 JuUi, 1879." 

The Sovereign Pontiff has just raised to the Cardinalate the Papal 
Nuncio at Paris. The Nuncio at Lisbon may, in his turn, receive the 
same honour; and then if the last ''And then f of St. Philip Neri's cross- 
examination of the ambitious youth should be realised in the career of 
our heroine's kinsman— if His Excellency should become His Eminence 
and then His Holiness, and if the present writer should chance to have 
any favour to ask of the Holy See during the reign of that possibly 
future Leo XIV. or Pius XI., he might take means to let the Holy 
Father know that his petitioner was the first, by means of these pages, 
to secure the sympathy and envy of many a pious maiden in far-off 
Erin for His Holiness' niece of amiable and saintly memory, Anna 
Maria Annunziata Grazia Aloisi-Masella, whose mourning kinsfolk 
might address her in the words of a certain child's epitaph, the fond 
diminutive being justified by the yearning wistfulness of their affec- 
tion if not by the tender years of the departed : *' Animula innoeentieeitna, 
solatium nuper noe^m, nunc deeiderium, ave et vale ! ". 

M.B. 



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( 774 ) 
AN ANSWER. 

BT HELEN D. TAINTBB. 

IS there any life worOiUTingP" 
How I laughed when I heard fhat thought ! 
My heart leaped like a happy bird. 

As he warbles his song untaught ; 
The air was full of sunshine, 

Falling like golden mist. 
And the glad earth smiled and blossomed. 
As the sun its green fields kissed. 

" The bees hummed in the dover, 

And the birds sang blithe and gay; 
The air was full of the fragrance 

That rose from the new-mown hay ; 
And I, too^ was in harmony 

With Nature's joyous sound, 
For a glad thought lingered in my heart, 

Like seed in the fertile ground. 

" Is there any life worth living ?" 

See ! I read the riddle dear- 
Come dosei, here beside me. 

Till I whisper in your ear; 
Let your influence fall gently. 

Like the dear Lord's golden sun 
That rests on the just as well as unjust, 

As though they both were one. 

*' Then tears shall dry when you pass. 

And the sounds of sorrow cease. 
And weary ones feel the holy calm 

That springs from a soul at peace. 
And living thus, you can comprehend 

And interpret life's meaning dim, 
And all its discords then shall blend 

Into one grand holy hymn.'' 



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( 775 ) 



THB O'OONNELL PAFEBS 
Pabt Tin. 

Ihb last portion of O'Conndl's private oozrespondenoe whioh we have 
had the privilege of patting for the first time into print related to the 
high le^ dignity proposed for his aooeptance by the Melbourne 
Administration soon after the passing of the Ihnancipation Act. 
Forty-five years later. Lord John Bussell — ^f or only by that name will 
Earl Bussell be known, if at all, to history — ^this cast-off statesman, at 
the time of the O'Connell Centenary, thought fit to emerge from the 
privaqr to whioh his notorious Durham Letter had condemned him. 
He might have given a better sign of life than a letter to the iZVmM, 
written for the purpose of belittling the tribute paid by O'Cllonnell's 
enemies to the greatness of his position. The ttmes had denied that any 
judgeship hadbeen offeredtoO'Oonnell; EarlBussell said it wasonly the 
Mastership of ihe Bolls. But in an admirable letter, published 
immediately after in the i^M»um'« Journal^ of August 18th, 1875, Mr. 
GFeorge N. Plunkett gave a convincing reply, quoting the statement 
made in Parliament by Mr. Liddell in 1840, and also this fine 
passage from O'ConneU's famous letter to the Earl of Shrewsbury :— 

** If I had abandoned politieB, even the honoiin of my profession and its highest 
stations lay fairly before me. But I dreamed a day-dream — was it a dream ?— that 
Ireland still wanted me ; that although the OathoUo aristocracy and gentry of Ire- 
land had obtained most valuable advantages from Emancipation, yet the benefits of 
good government had not reached the great mass of the Irish people, and could not 
reach them unless the Union should be either made a reality, or unless that hideous 
measure should be abrogated. 

" I did not hesitate as to my course. My former success gave me personal advan- 
tages whioh no other man could easily procure. I flung away the profession. I gave 
ite emoluments to the winds. I closed the vista of its honours and dignities. I em- 
braced the cause of my oountiy, and, come weal or come woe, I have made a choice at 
which I have never repined, nor ever shaU repent. 

" An event oocuned which I could not have foreseen. Once more high profes- 
sional promotion was placed within my reach. The office of Lord Chief Baron of the 
Exchequer became vacant. I was offered it ; or had I preferred the office of Master 
of the Bolls, the alternative was proposed to me. It was a tempting offer. Its value 
, was enhanced by the manner in which it was made, and pre-eminently so by the person 
through whom it was made — the best Englishman that Ireland ever saw— the Marquis 
of Normanby. 

'* But I dreamed again a day-dream — ^was it a dream ? — and I refused the offer. 
And here I am now taunted, even by you, with mean and sordid motives ! 



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776 CtCannelL 

<< I do not think I am gufltj of the least Tanitj when I aewrt that no maa efer 
made greater aacriflcee to what he deemed the cauae of his ooimtrj than I hare dona. 
I care not how I may he ridiculed or maligned. I feel the prond eonsejonsness that 
no poblic man has made more^ or greater, or more ready •acrifioes.'* 

As another spedmen of the mighiy speaker's written style, we aie 
tempted to give a rather long extract from a letter addressed by 
O'Connell to Walter Savage Landor, in October, 1838, in which he 
describes his beloved Darrynane. We were at first pozzled to deter- 
mine why the veiy masculine writer had recourse to the very feminine 
device of italicising the epithet '' imaginary; " bat no doubt it is a 
playful allusion to ''Imaginaiy Oonversations/' the most famous 
work of his correspondent : — 

*< I could show you at noontide, when the stem south-wester had blown long and 
radely, the mountain waTes coming in from the ilHmitahle ocean, in majestic saoees- 
sion, expending their gigantie foree, and throwing up stupendous masses of foam, 
against the more gigantie and more stupendous mountain eliib, that fence not only 
this my natiTS spot, hut form that eternal barrier wliioh prerents the wild Atlantic 
from submerging the cultirated plains and high-staspled Tillages of proud Britain her- 
self. Or, were you with me amidst the Alpine scenery that surrounds my humUa 
abode, listening to the eternal roar of the mountain torrent, as it bounds through the 
rocky defiles of my natire glens, I would Tenture to tell you how I was bom within the 
sound of the eyerlasting waTC, and how my dreamy boyhood dwelt upon imagmary 
interoourse with those who are dead of yore, and fed its fond fancies upon theaneieDt 
and long faded glories of that land whldi preserred literature and OhrisUanify, when 
the rest of the now civilised Burope was shrouded in the darkness of godless ignorances 
Tes ; my expanding spirit delighted in these dreams, till catching from them an en- 
thusiasm which no disiqppointment can embitter, nor accumulating years diminish, I 
formed the high resolre to leaTC my natire land better after my death than I found 
her at my birth, and, if possible, to make her what she ought to be— 

'* 'Oreat, glorious, and free, 
First flower of the earth, and first gem of the sea.' 

*' Perhaps, if I could show you the calm and exquisite beauty of these capacious 
bays and mountain promontories, softened in the pale moonlight which shines this 
loTdy eTcning, till all, which during the day was grand and terrific, has become calm 
and serene in the silent tranquillity of the dear night, perhaps you would readUy admit 
that the man who has been so often called a ferocious demagogue, is, in truth, a gentle 
loTer of Nature, an enthusiast for all her beauties — 

<* < Fond of each gentle and each dreary scene,' 

and, catching from the loTeliness as well as the dreariness of the ocean, and Alpine 
scenes with which it is surrounded, a greater ardour to promote the good of man, in 
his OTcrwhelming admiration of the mighty works of GK)d." 

O'Goxmell did not come into possession of the Danynane estate till 
the death of his Unde Maurice, a short time before the date of the 
foregoing letter. The epitaph of this venerable patriarch, which his 
heir lost no time in placing over his grave, cannot be separated from 
those of the Liberator's grandfather and grandmother. They have 
been copied for us by the present '' D. O'Connell of Darrynane," as 



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OConnelL 777 

he signs lumself , with oommendable pride, in a name of nobler signi- 
fioance than such hereditary titles as Boss of Bladensbnrg, or Wolseley 
of Cairo. 

D. O. M. 

Sacred to the Memory 

OF 

DANIEL O'CONNELL, 

Formerly of Darrinane, Esa, 

"Who departed this life in the month 

OF September, 1770, 

Full of years and of virtues; 

And of 

MART, HIS wife; 

She also was of an ancient race 

OF THE House of O'Donoghue. 

She survived her husband 22 years, 

And was a Model for Wives and Mothers 

to admire and imitate. 

JSequteacani in pace. 

Here also are deposited the mortal remains 

OF 

MAUEIOE O'GONNELL, Esq., 

their son, who erected this monument. 

The chief ambition of his long and prosperous life 

was to elevate an ancient family from unmerited 

and unjust oppression. 

his allegiance was pure and disinterested, 

HIS LOVE OF HIS NaTIVE LaND SINCERE AND AVOWED, 
AND HIS ATTACHMENT TO THE ANCIENT FaITH OF HIS FaTHERS, 

TO THE Church of Christ, 
was his first pride and chiefest consolation. 
He died of the 10th day of February, 1826, 

IN THE 97th year OF HIS AGE. 

They loved him most who knew him best. 
May HIS SOUL rest in eternal peace. 

"We copy these inscriptions because they were composed by 
O'Connell. The only drawback to the delight he took in his ancestral 
home was the ill effect of the Darrynane air on his wife's health, 
though herself a native also of the kingdom of Kenj. There are 
many allusions to this in the letters which lie before us, but which we 
do not feel justified in quoting largely, though they all prove that 
O'Connell's heart was worthy of his head, and that Mary O'Connell 
was fit to be his partner and counsellor. Darrynane was theirs only 
for a couple of months when we find her writing from Dublin in 

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778 aCanneU. 

April, 1825.— "We «re^ God be thanked, in perfect health. How I 
wish Danynane may agreewith me 1 Bedde the delight of being with. 
you, 1 thinki should be able to do a great deal of good for the poor 
people about Danynane." Her wiah was not realised ; for, in 1833» 
in a letter whioh begin% " My own Loye,'* we find O'Connell saying: — 

<*H7 Booundxel port did not come to me last night ; he wae afnid of the moun- 
tain* It certainly waa a dark and diamal night. I waa not in bed until after twel^a^ 
late hour with me now; howerer, I found a letter from you when I came down, and 
that consoled me. Nothing eheera me but you. I am lone and melancholy when yoa 
are aeparated from me. It would do me no good to go to Eatty't ; I should want yoa 
stilL I muflt, I see^ make up my mind to be separated from my own heart's dariing 
treasure longer than I could wish. It is, indeed, sweetest, a bitter misfortune to nae 
that the place does not agree with you. It would be too ezquisitely delightful if yoa 
were here and in gtioi keaUk, It agrees with me surprisingly." 

He goes on to oommnnicate sundry domestic details, and among 
the rest ** we have Mass ereiy day, or almost every day." This letter 
is dated " Danynane Abbey," whioh form of the name originated with 
Mrs. O'Connell, as her son informs us. The present owner of the 
Abbey, Mr. Daniel O'Connell, son of the Liberator's eldest son, 
Maurioe, has been so kind as to furnish us with the following aoooont 
of the holy ruins whioh suggested the name. 

« The so-called Abbey of Danynane, or more properly Aghamore, 
was a house of Augustinian Oanons, and fell to the priory of Mollowna 
or Mollanassane, now known as Molana, in the parish of Temple- 
miohael, ooimty Waterford. This was granted by patent, dated March 
3, 11th, James I., to Sir Biohard Boyle, Knt. ; and the cell or ' terri- 
torie of Aghmoar' [so in the copy I have] in tiie county of Kerry, is 
exonerated with other promises, &c., of said priory. As James I. 
ascended the throne on March 2drd, 1603, the above date would be 
March Srd, 1614. The O'Connells must have taken Danynane from 
the Boyles almost immediately, as they were settled there before 1640. 
They continued tenants to the Earls of Cork, the descendants of Sir 
Biohard Boyle, imtil 1858, when the present Earl sold the head-rent 
tome. 

''The remains of the monastery stand on a little peninsula 
joined to the mainland by a low sandy isthmus which is covered by 
high spring tides, whence it is known as Lana-monastiry or Abbey 
Island. Besides a small church, about 40 feet by 19, there are two 
domestic buildings, one at right angles and the other parallel to the 
church. They are apparently of different dates, with no architectural 
features that would give a clue to their age. The church is in a very 
plain early English style ; and in England I should set it down as 
dating from the end of the twelfth century. It is really, I fancy, 
some fifty or a hundred years later. 

" The soil of the Abbey Island is very good ; and from the ruins 



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aConnelL 779 

there is a ohanning yiew oyer the Bay of Darrynane with its white 
sandy beach broken here and there by black rocks, and with a fine 
background of mountains." 

Near the place where the high altar stood in this ancient Abbey 
Church— of which altar, Mr. O'Gonnell tells ns, ''there exists an 
oblong pile of rabble about two feet distant from the east wall" — at 
the Gospel side of the altar is the monument of cut-stone covering the 
vault in which the Liberator's wife was buried. She died at Darry- 
nane, on the 20th of October. Among the letters too sacred to be 
laid before even the sympathetic eyes Uiat will read these pages, are 
many beautiful prayers and exhortations addressed to her children 
which prove her to have been a fervent and devoted Catholic mother 
even above the high average of Irish mothers. In this respect, she was 
but the worthy partner of the great man with whose joys and sorrows 
Ood had linked her lot. One of the Young Ireland orators, at the 
opening meeting of the Irish Confederation, made the Botunda ring 
with applause thirty-five years ago by exclaiming : " Woman may 
well consider, even in the gilded saloons of fashion where her youth 
is flattered and her age neglected, whether it was not something to 
be the mother of a Gracchus, the wife of a Tell, the daughter of a 
Cato, the sister of a Sheares, or the betrothed of an Emmet — names 
enriched with the glory that has blazoned man's success or embalmed 
in the tears that have consecrated his failure." The wife of William 
Tell ? Yes, but far better and more glorious to have been the not 
unworthy wife of Daniel O'Connell* 

The Maurice O'Connell whose epitaph we have transcribed — called 
'* Hunting-cap," from the headgear which he most affected — is said 
to have ridden sixty miles in one day when he was ninety years of 
age, in order to be in time to discharge Ids duties as Grand Juror at 
Tralee. His wife, a member of the CantiUon family of county Li- 
merick, had no child and died many years before him. His nephew 
and heir inherited also his taste for the robust pastime to whidi his 
sobriquet was an allusion. Montalembert, O'Neill Daunt, and others 
have given us attractive descriptions of the Liberator at home at 
Darrynane. A letter of his own firom Darrynane, in December, 1842, 
describes with great zest the recent performances of his hounds ; and 
it ends with the statement : " I have now fourteen of my grandchil- 
dren about me, all lovely young people." 



Vol. X.. No. 114. digitized by ©OOglc 



( 78o ) 



NEW BOOKS. 
I. The JD'Altotu of Crag. A Story of '48 and '49. By Eiohard Baftibt 

O'Bbien, D.D., Dean of Limeriok, to. J>o., author of '* Alley 

Moore," '' Jack HasliU," ''The Ohuroh and the Country," 4^0., fto. 

(Dublin: James Duffy & Sons, 1882). 

Monsignor O'Brien begins the preface of his last Irish novel by 
stating that it can hardly be called a work of the imagination, because 
every one of the main facts has had a real existence. He adds, witb 
reference to the period in which his story is laid : ** We have enooun* 
tered many gloomy days since the times we have endeavoured to 
describe, but nothing comparable to the helplessness and hopelessness 
of '48 and '49." 

Dean O'Brien — the old familiar name has probably held its own 
in Newcastle West against the title recently conferred by the Sovereign 
Pontiff — ^the venerable author gives in these pages, to use his own 
words, '' many illustrations of the beautiful and devoted love that has 
ever bound, and, thank God, will ever bind together the people and 
the priests of Ireland." He tells us that his Father Aylmer and Father 
Power are not merely ideal Tipperary priests, but are drawn from the 
life, and sure to be recognised by many of his readers. 

The story is told with great vigour, and is full of diversified inci« 
dent of no humdrum or commonplace character. 

n. The Flying Dutchman and Other Poems. By E. M. Olibkb. 
(London: Satchel and Go. 1881). 

The articles whidi, in the Weekly Begieter under its new editorshq^ 
have been directed (too rarely) to the subject of poetry, seem to us to 
be characterised by a just and sober judgment, and by a veiy special 
knowledge of the poetic art. For instance, the very brief notice d 
the present yolume opens with the sentences : — <' Narrative verse, and 
the kind of directness, simplicity, and spirit which should distinguish 
it, have become rare in our time. The narrative method (witii or 
without those qualities) was, in the days which followed the times of 
Scott, the habitual method of new and tentative writers, as the medi- 
tative is now ; the choice of the former in our time is indicative of 
some measure of individuality and of personal impulse, just as the 
selection of the latter was fifty years ago, and we are therefore pre- 
judiced in favour of a first volume of verse in which a story is set in 
a quickly-moving ballad measure." This very just observation 
regards only the first two poems of the volimie, which are, indeed, the 
longest. They display vigour and concentration of thought and 
language, and a very notable mastery of rhyme. No ft>iiMial» or 
womanly accumulation of epithets, and an evident determination to be 

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New Books. 781 

neither tawdxy or ooimnonplaoe. Aa far aa a land-lubber can judge, 
Miaa Gierke is an adept in nautical knowledge ; and there are incidental 
traces, not a few, of accuracy in divers other sorts of scholarship. 
If we could venture on extracts, our chance would fall perhaps on 
** The Trial Trip," or (in quite another manner) "Night's Soliloquy." 
We have no doubt that, if we knew the Italian poet Giusti, we should 
find the translations at the end of the volume very clever ; but there 
is one piece here which every one who dips into Italian literature 
knows off by heart. The version of Manzoni's "Cinque Maggio" 
seems to us excellent. This most popular lyric of Italy has tempted 
many a translator ; but we know of none so good as Miss Gierke, except 
Mr. Gladstone — ^for the Ghrand Old Man is poet also. Here is the 
Premier's version of one of the stanzas : — 

<< How often, as the liiUeM day 

In silence died away, 

He Btood, with lightning-eje depressed 

And arms across his breast. 
And bygone years, in rushing train, 
Smote on his soul amain. 

The breesy tents he seemed to see, 

And the battering cannon's course, 

And the flashing of the infantry 

And the torrent of the horse, 

And, obeyed as soon as heard, 
Th' ecstatic word." 

In Miss Gierke's translation the same lines are presented as fol- 
lows: — 

** And oft, as to stiU twilight paled 
Day's apathetic rest. 
He stood, his meteor glanoes veiled, 
Anns folded on his breast. 

By crowding memories wwiled 

or all that life held bert: 
Behearsing how the tents rose fair 
'Mid echoing Tales and meads. 
The gleam of arms in serried square, 
The surge of charging steeds, 

And swift oommands, to which ne'er failed 

Fulfilment of swift deeds." 

On turning to the original we were disappointed at finding no 
better justification for Mr. Gladstone's " ecstatic word " than the 
difficult phrase, " eanoitaio tmperio,** 

<*OhJ quante Tolte al tacito 
Morir d'un giomo inerte, 
Chinati i rai f ulminei, 
Le braooia al sen conserie, 
Btette, e del dl ohe f nrono 
L'assalse il sorrenir. 



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782 New Books. 

** Ei ripentd le mobili 
Tende, e i perooan Talli, 
B il lampo dei manipoli, 
£ Tonda dei caraUi, 
B il oondtato impeiio, 
B il celere obbedir." 

The drcuinstaiices under wliich this celebrated ode on the death of 
Napoleon Bonaparte was written and published, are told in a re- 
markably able and interesting article on " Alessandro Manzoni and 
his Work/' in the current number of the Dublin Review. This article 
is signed by the lady whose poems we are recommending to our 
readers, and who is known to be a contributor also to the great 
Edinburgh Review, The interest attaching to her very successful 
literary achievements will be increased for many when they are told 
that Miss Gierke is an Irishwoman, and a kinswoman, we belioTO, 
of Baron Beasy. 

m. Miscellaneous. 

'' St. Bebxabd s Hymn Book*' (Canning, Birmingham) is not only a 
very complete and well-printed collection of hymns, but an excellent 
compendious Prayer Book. " Flowers from the Garden of St. Francis*' 
(Buma & Gates), gives us a holy thought for every day of the year, 
culled from the saints, especially, of course, the seraphic saint himself. 
The same publishers have sent us, in a neat little brochure, *' The Form 
of Becondling a Convert," which happily is needed in London and 
elsewhere. 

IV. Ohristfnas Books. 

Ferhapb the beet Ohristmaa books are those which are not published 
for Christmas. For instance, the new splendid quarto edition of 
*' The Spirit of the Nation," would be an excellent gift, especiaUy for 
one who could sing the spirited ballads here set to music We wish, 
however, that Father Meehan had not effaced himself so completely as 
editor, but had prefixed a long introduction, telling us as much as 
possible about the various ''Nation'' poets. 

Another good Christmas gift, for a young person, is the volume of 
''The Catholic Children's Magazine," which is just completed, full of 
bright pictures and stories, and many other good and pretty things 
besides. Those young people, or those caterers for young people, who 
order this magazine for the coming year, 1883, will find, before the 
twelve months are over, that they have got ample value for their one 
shilling and sixpence. The publishers of " The Catholic Children's 
Magaxine " are James Duffy & Sons, Wellington-quay, Dublin. 

Bladde & Son, the enterprising publishing firm, who have estab- 
lishments in London, Dublin, Edinburgh, and Glasgow, have enlisted 



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Nem Books. 783 

Irish talent in the semce of their youthful clients this Ohristmas. 
One of their latest announcements is '' Four Little Mischiefs/' by Miss 
Bosa MulhoUand, author of '< Fiye Little Fanners," '' The Little Flower 
Seekers/' ' Puck and Blossom," &c. Nothing could be better for its 
purpose than the paper, printing, and pictures of this charming book ; 
and fortunately the story is worthy of all this — ^which is more than 
could be said of a great many prettily bound volumes. It is not a 
book about young people, suited rather to delight old people, like the 
famous "Alice in Wonderland," or Miss MulhoUand's own ''Little 
Flower Seekers;" it is aimed straight at the young hearts themselves, 
and we have no manner of doubt it will hit its mark. The four 
principal characters, Fatty, Jock, Kosie, and Bunko, are maintained 
all through with admirable consistency, and the subsidiary nurses and 
country folk, and even such minor characters as the mamma of the 
pariy, are touched off with consimmiate skill. The headings given to 
every page must be by no means passed over. They have some of the 
cleverness of the titles of the chapters in the '' Vicar of Wakefield." 
The designer of the cover deserves a vote of thanks for catching in 
flagrante Jock and Bunko forming '' a band." Far be it from the 
present reviewer to intrude an opinion on the probabilities of doll- 
life, but the chapter on the Hedge Dolls is rather startling. 

A sister volume to the foregoing, has come to us from the same 
publishers : — 

** Facies non omnibus una, 
Nee direna tamen, quails debet eese sororum." 

Miss Clara Mulholland has proved herself a most competent 
historian of the tricks and troubles of " Naughty Miss Bunny," whose 
experiences will, we are sure, be highly beneficial to many thousands 
of little English-speaking maidens. £ven at her worst she is not too 
naughty, and we veiy soon learn to like her greatly. The authoress 
manifestly possesses a thorough knowledge of child-nature, which 
is revealed by many delicate touches in every page. There is no 
preaching, but many wise and useful lessons are inculcated very 
quietly and agreeably. We trust that a veiy wide circulation will 
reward the publishers for the pains they have taken in bringing out 
attractively this most pleasant and wholesome story. 

Another book has been forwarded to us for review, which it would 
be vexy incongruous to name |in the present context We have even 
made up our minds not to name it in any context, though we have a 
high appreciation of the motives which urged the head of an Irish 
F^testant OoUege to write it and to publish it. The author would 
himself, we are sure, approve of our determination not to bring the 
subject before the readers of a Magarine like ours ; but we, moreover, 
hold that such counsels are likely to prove less useful and more hann- 



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7 84 The Third Degree of Humility. 

ful to those of whom Oardinal Kewman has said: "It is the boast of 
the Catholic religion that it has the gift of making the jonng heart 
chaste ; and why is this but that it giyes ns Jesus as our food and 
Maiy as our nursing mother ?*' 

♦ • • 

From Christmas books to Christmas wishes, the transition is easy, 
especially on the last page of our tenth yearly yolume. Our best and 
most fervent wishes and prayers are for those who, as contributors or 
subscribers, and in other characters also, have helped to enable us ta 
wish, not unhopefully, to our Magazine and its friends, on the thres- 
hold of its eleventh year, many another Happy New Year. 



THE THTRD DEOBEE OF HUMILITT. 

BY AZOZZI. 

HOW lovely is the pain 
Borne tranquilly for Thee, Lord ! 
No hope of comfort or reward, 
Or any selfish gain. 

How sweetly lies the head, 
Fast bound by anguish to thy Cross — 
What sense of ill, what fear of loss. 

What foolish human dread 

Can fall upon me here, 
Where, fixed in patient ecstasy. 
Alone on Calvaiy with Thee, 

I feel my Saviour near ? 



END OF VOL. X. 



M. H. Gill ft Sod, PriuWra, DubUa. 

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